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

"The Greatest of Literary Problems, James Finney Baxter by 1915 there were 10,000 volumes written about Shakespeare"

W.S. shrewdly secures an agreement to indemnify him from loss in his old investment in the tithes. Is left 5 pounds by John A. Combe

W.S. conspires to acquire certain common land in the purlieus of Stratford by enclosure. Correspondence and notes in Greene's diary reveal the actor's interest in this unjust proceeding.

April 26 1615 W.S. a petitioner with others to Chancellor Egerton to compel Mathew Bacon to deliver up certain papers relative to title of the Blackfriars property.

1615 Villiers supplants Somerset as the Favourite and becomes acquainted with Francis Bacon.

1615
A great dispute between the Count of Chancery presided over by Francis Bacon, and the Court of King's Bench presided over by Sir Edward Coke, ending in Coke's disgrace.

1615 Bacon prepares two cases of prosecution for "treason" -- sedition was synonymous to treason in King's eyes.

1616 -- Overbury affair comes to trial -- prosecution of the Old Favourite and his wife for the murder of Overbury.

April 23 -- W.Shaksper dies in Stratford after an illness super induced by having "drank too hard," leaving will covering his minutest belongings. (Rumor that Ben Jonson poisoned him.) He dies "Unwept, unhonoured and unsung."
On the same day in Spain, Cervantes dies.

November -- Charles invested as Prince of Wales

The Continent stirred by a series of Rosicrucian pamphlets advocating an Ethical Brotherhood for the amelioration of the social, political and religious ills that were afflicting mankind.

1617 James travels to Scotland.

March 7 -- (March 3, says du Maurier) Bacon, now 57 is made Lord Keeper of the Seal (the same office held by Sir Nicholas B.) Bacon was left in almost complete charge of the government of England. (Regent in King's absence).
May 7 -- Francis took his seat in the Court of Chancery and delivered his first speech of office dressed in his purple satin! with many attendants. He was the defacto head of the government in the absence of the King. He vowed to clear the courts of cases. (As in the past, this advancement was followed by indisposition.)

Altercation between Edward Coke and Lady Hatton over their 2nd daughter Frances. Coke wanted her to marry John, brother of George Villiers. Mother and daughter wouldn't agree. She left in secret with her daughter. Coke demanded a warrant to fetch his daughter from the Council. Francis refused to sign, but eventually Secretary of State, Sir Ralph Winwood obliged and signed the warrant. Lady Hatton "fabricated" another suitor for her daughter.

According to Dodd, Coke and Lady Compton (Buckingham's mother) to be revenged on F.B. for supplanting him the Privy Council, etc.

King and his favourite Villiers not pleased with Francis' refusing to sign the warrant. He "lost points" with them.

When King returned, "Steenie," (George Villiers) became the all-powerful Duke of Buckingham.

Francis later managed to make amends with King and "Steenie" and the marriage finally took place

Raleigh released from the tower to make a voyage to South America

1618 January 7 --
(January 4, says du Maurier) Made Lord High Chancellor

July 12 -- received the title of Baron Verulam. Francis is now a peer.

October 28 -- Raleigh sentenced to death. (During his voyage to Orinoco he had offended the Spanish, who accused him of piracy. The King was negotiating for a marriage of his son with the Infanta. Raleigh's actions threatened this delicate alliance.

1619 January 12 -- Fire at Whitehall. Many Council papers lost. No lives lost.

March -- Queen died. Both King and Francis had a stone. Queen's body lay at Denmark House in the Strand for 2+ months
Burbage died.

The Wisdom of the Ancients, first English edition.

King grants him a pension of 1200 per annum.

F.B. dismisses dishonest registrar from the Chancery named John Churchil.

Habsburg King Ferdinand (disliked by his subjects) had been deposed and his throne offered to James' son-in-law, a Protestant. The Elector Palatine set off for Prague. Ex-King Ferdinand's cousin (the German Emperor) declared war on Frederick, and the latter hoped for help from Great Britain. But the King held back, not wanting to offend the King of Spain who was an ally of the German Emperor. Francis favored support of Frederick and Elizabeth. The King temporized (procrastinated): was Frederick's accession legally valid?
1620-1626 Bacon now at the peak of his authority

Bacon at last felt safe to publish under his own name. Spring - Francis concerned with the Government of the country and sets forth his suggestions for better organization through various commissions (like our "departments" today) and establishment of routines. Nothing came of his suggestions. He was ahead of his time.

Publishes Novum Organum.

F.B. recommends a new parliament to be called. Writs go out. Churchil has furnished Coke with a "Black List" of discontented suitors in the Chancery which can be used in a charge of bribery and corruption.

1621 January -- His 60th birthday celebration -- at the pinnacle of his career.

27 January (New Year's) -- Created Viscount St. Albans. Splended ceremony of investiture at Theobalds, the former home of the Cecils, near Bacon's own home of Gorhambury in Hertfordshire. Once again wore purple, and King James did not object.

30 January New Parliament meets. Coke is leader of the Commons.

12 Feb: The Commons appoint committees to inquire into abuses and grievances amid great excitement.

14 March: Sir Lionel Cranfield denounces "abuses" in the Chancery Court and attacks Francis Bacon, saying he has two witnesses prepared to testify along with others compiled by J. Churchil. Francis Bacon writes to the Lords denying the charges and asks for the privileges of a High Court action. He announces his intention three times to defend himself.

16 April: The King sends for Francis Bacon and Commands him to desert his defence.

21 April -- offered to surrender the Seals. Refused the right to defend himself

24 April:
The Prince of Wales announces to the Lords that he is the bearer of a "Submission" from the Lord Chancellor announcing his intention to desert his defence. The Lords demand that he pleads "Guilty" to each item, twenty-three cases in all. He sees the detailed charges for the first time in the evening.

30 April: The Chancellor returns Coke's "Black List" with the word "Guilty" written to each charge.

1 May -- Four Peers wait upon Francis Bacon to receive the Great Seal of England as he is too ill to go to the Bar of the House of Lords to surrender it. This event greatly parallels the scene from Henry VIII in which Woolsey surrenders his seals. In the evening he composes a wonderful prayer, found in his papers after his death, which, says Addison, sounds more like an angel than a man.

3 May -- sentenced by the House of Lords. Francis is too ill to attend. He is fined forty thousand pounds (fine was never paid) Sentenced to the Tower of London (spent four days there), May 31 - June 4.

Prohibited from holding office for the state

Prohibited from sitting in Parliament
.

Prohibited from entering the city of London. Later exceptions were made, and he was permitted to return. He eventually took up his old lodging at Gay's Inn.

31 May --
Imprisoned in the Tower, writes a peremptory letter to the King and Buckingham demanding instant release. The necessary warrant was sent immediately to the Governor of the Tower.

The title of Chancellor was not taken from him

Later that same year, the King sent for him to ask his advice on the reform of the courts.

"I have done with all vanities."

1 Dec:
A petition to the House of Lords: "I am old, weak, ruined, in want, a very subject of pity."

Argenis published in Latin in Paris, shortly after the death of the alleged author. An elaborate, allegorical history of 483 pages in large quarto, and is stated to have been edited by the dead author's friend Peireskius. Had Bacon managed to "conceal and yet reveal" his own personal history. Adventure novel. Nicopompous writes sonnets and little poems for other people that should redound to their fame. "For I bind not myself religiously to the writing of a true history, and take this liberty that the vices, and not the men, be struck."

1622

Buckingham, at last obtains York House.

Decision to gather plays together for publication.

Timon of Athen
The History of Henry VII

Publishes Historia Ventorum and Historia Vitae et Mortis

December --
Tobie Matthew, his good friend returns from exile.

1623-24 January 20 -- Francis restored to King's favor. Still seeks a full pardon. Ben Jonson, the Poet Laureate, lives and works with Francis Bacon at Gorhambury.

Francis moves once more to Gray's Inn.

November -- The Great Shakespeare Folio of 1623 , edited by Ben Jonson, consisting of thirty-six plays, many never heard of before, is published. In Henry VIII Francis Bacon tells the story of his own fall and his parentage. It was never before written or played up to this time. (The Tempest has the name Francis Bacon entwined around the initial letter B from Boteswaine in the 1623 Folio)

Compare the bookband from Henry V (1608) with the folio version (1623). Fifteen years have passed, and the young, life-enjoying Bacon-Perseus is now the aging and overthrown Lord Chancellor. Also the Face of the Pan head has two different eyes, one weeping, one laughing, giving a strange, whimsical expression!

The Shakespeare bust is placed in the Stratford Church. Who placed it there?

Publishes De Augmentis Scientarium. In this treatise Bacon describes the method of ciphering used in the biliteral cipher. (Omnia per omnia.) This was the second mention of cipher in his works.

Jonson enters English translation of Argenis in the Stationers' Hall, but this translation was never published.

1624 Prepares for the press Sylva Sylvarum and The New Atlantis or The Land of the Rosicrosse (as indicated by the Brethren in later years).

July & August -- Publishes Apothegems -- dictated by memory from sickbed. Many betray a pungent sense of humor. Were these published because he owed the printer money?

Cryptomenytices appears in Germany by Gustavus Selenus-- Text appeared in Latin. The frontispiece is elaborate and telling. Upper picture: "Tempest" bordered by masks of tragedy. Middle left picture: Man wearing a tall hat giving a wallet with bank note and MSS to a peasant who holds a spear. He carries them to the Globe theatre, London. An eagle in the skies takes to his keeping Shakespeare's immortal works. Middle right picture: The Stratfordian, now rich, on his high horse goes hunting like a gentleman.

1625 Arranges into themes his private diary of sonnets; carefully disarranges them to destroy personal meanings; prints them by the private press of the Rosicrosse; and distributes the book to the heads of the Rosicrosse-Masons as a secret document in the Christmas New Year Lodges. This book was the "1609" Quarto entitled Shakespeare's Sonnets and was kept concealed as a Masonic secret until George Steevens, a Shakespearean Freemason, reprinted the book in 1766.

58 plays had been published under Shake-speare's name.

March 5 -- King became ill after hunting at Theobalds.

March 27 -- King James died. A great funeral is held. Son Charles I becomes king.

Summer -- plague and sickness raged in London. People swarmed out of the city, spreading the infection.

Francis writes his last will. Later revised and revoked his wife's part in the former will.

Final edition of the Essays.

First English translation of Argenis by Kingsmill Long.

1626 Feb 6 -- Parliament meets. Francis not included. He is still trying to procure a complete pardon from the King, which would enable him to hold office.

Before Easter, 1626, Francis Bacon had seen all the persons who had taken part in the plot against him struck down in ruin and disgrace. They fell like rotten apples, all save Buckingham. He alone was reserved to die under the hand of an avenger, to the joy of the nation. At the age of sixty six Francis Bacon "died to the world" but there is conjecture that he fled to the Continent and lived to a very old age.

The story goes that while experimenting with the effect of cold on the decay of meat he catches a cold and develops bronchitis.

April 9 (Easter Sunday morning) -- dies at Lord Arundel's house Highgate , 66 years old.

11 days after F.B. dies, his widow marries Sir. John Underhill, "the gentleman usher" of their household.

Dr. Peter Boener: (domestic apothecary and secretary) "I never saw him changed or disturbed towards anyone, he was ever the same in sorrow and in joy, a noteworthy example for everyone of all virtue, gentleness, peacefulness and patience."

When Bacon died, after 1626 the Elizabethan music faded out as though Bacon had been the leader of the national choir.
1626 Manes Verulamiani -- poems on the death of the Lord Chancellor printed as extracts in 1640. In 1730 printed in full form. (Found in 1896)

1627 New Atlantis and Sylva Sylvarum published together for 9 editions.

New Atlantis published a few months after he died with emblem "In time the hidden truth shall be revealed."

1629 Sir Robert le Greys and Thomas May published a second translation of Argenis and to this was added a Clavis or Key at the special command of Charles 1st to explain the characters in the Argenis, who were confessedly concealed under feigned names. The King was therefore fully aware of the truth of the Royal Secrets the book contained.

1631 Pierre Amboise -- early writer on Bacon, states Bacon was "born to the purple and brought up with the expectation of a great career. . . . " (Yet there had been a law in England for over 100 years that only royalty could wear purple.) "He saw himself destined one day to hold in his hand the helm of the kingdom."

1632 June 12 -- Bacon's estate finally settled. Judge sells the lands and estates to Lord Dunsmore for 6,000, on condition that he should pay Lady Underhill 530 pounds per year for her lifetime

1635 Three more of Bacon's books published by Rawley.

1636 A further edition of Argenis appeared with illustrations and a more elaborate Key to unlock the mystery of the allegory. The author of Argenis says his object was to wrap up some important historical truths in a tangle of imaginative fiction and that under certain fanciful names, well known persons and places are intended. The Key tells us who these fanciful names represent. Argenis is Margaret Valois; Hyanisbe Queen Elizabeth; Archombrotos or Hiempsall is her son who employs himself in writing Sonnets for various festive occasions at the Court. Nicopompus is the author, Mauretania is England, etc. The fable relates how the Queen was privately married "to a man of must eminent qualitie next to the King's, how she had a secret son, how she fought with Philip of Spain, how she posed as a Virgin to the world the better to discomfit her foreign enemies, how she forbade her son to marry Argenis, etc.

The first publication of any of Shake-speares Sonnets (apart from two published in 1599) was given to the open world in a book entitled Poems written by Wil. Shakespeare Gent. They were published by the Rosicrosse Literary Society, Francis Bacon's literary executors. The Poems continued to be printed in the "1640 form" (known as Benson's Medley because the "Unknown Sonnets" were printed in odd groups between well-known poems and songs of Shakespeare) and no one suspects that their impersonal captions masked a Biographical Diary of tempestuous emotions.

1641 Sir Thomas Meautys succeeds Francis as owner of Gorhambury. Thomas marries Anne Bacon, the daughter of Sir Nathaniel Bacon of Culford, Francis' nephew and well-known portrait painter of his day. (Meautys also erected a fine monument to his former friend and employer in St. Michael's church, St. Albans. date unknown)

1642 The Theatres around London closed by Parliament.

1644 Sermones Fideles, Leyden

1645 Theodor Haak, resident of the Palitinate, with friends at Oxford and Cambridge founded a society for carrying out the experiments of "Solomon's House (from Bacon's New Atlantis.) This was an Invisible Society out of which sprang the Royal Society under King Charles II, (see 1660).

Historia Vitae et Mortis published in Dilinger.

1653 Scripta Naturali et Universali -- Bacon shown on frontispiece next to Columbus and Copernicus.

1657 In Memory of Elizabeth by F. Bacon.(posthumous) Like Alexander and Julius Caesar, Eliz left no legitimate issue, but had natural children.

1660 Royal Society Founded under Charles II. (Science) (Francis Bacon acknowledged as primary influence).

Bacon also praised by Cowley as being the greatest poet of the day, after Milton.

1671 The last of the Biliteral cipher appears in print.

1679 Bishop Thomas Tenison -- early writer on Bacon, pointedly declared that F. Bacon led a concealed life. Tenison quotes Dr. Rawley: "He (Dr. Rawley) judged some papers, touching Matters of Estate (relating to Francis Bacon) to tread too near upon the Heels of Truth, and to the Times of the Persons concerned, to be published openly."

1693 Dowdall, researching Shaksper conversed with an old clerk who was then over 80 (he would have been born in 1610's and might have known Shaksper). He said Shaksper was a butcher's apprentice and ran away from his master to London.

1707 In Van der Werff's portrait of Elizabeth she is with 3 children. (Who was Van der Werff? He seemed to know the whole story, says J.O. Fuller)

1709
Rowe's Life of Shakespeare

1725 Alexander Pope's edition of Shakespeare

1730
Poems on the death of the Lord Chancellor printed in full form (Manes Verulamiani).

1726 Wilmot born at Warwick, a fellow of Trinity College

1740-41 Statue of "The Bard" placed in Westminster Abbey, same year anonymous pamphlet The Life and Adventures of Common Sense, which states that W.S. was a profligate and a thief ...

1746
The Stratford monument (which may have been placed there by Bacon himself, or his close associates as a joke when the first folio was printed) was replaced. (The image of "Shakespeare" with pen and paper on cushion replaces the figure with a tradesman's sack.)

1761 Roger Ascham's preface Divae Elizabethae, published. See 1566. It indicates that he knew why he was commanded by Queen Elizabeth to do the work The Schoolmaster.

1765
Samuel Johnson writes that Shakspere held horses at the door of the play-house, and in time "found higher employment."

1766 George Steevens, a famous Shakespearean scholar, and a member of the Rosicrosse, reprints openly for the first time, a copy of the hitherto secret book held by the Literary Fraternity, the "1609 Quarto." No one takes any notice of it.

1769 Stratford Jubilee. David Garrick deserves the credit for starting the trend of upgrading Stratford into a proper memorial for the supposed author in his own home town. Almost everything about the life of Shakespeare is mere fabrication, starting with the place where he was born, the school, Anne Hathaway's cottage, the mulberry tree, etc.

Herbert Lawrence, The Life and Adventures of Commonsense the first to raise the Shakespeare authorship question.

1777 Mrs. Hornby arranged an exhibition of objects said to have belonged to Shaksper. It was an outrageous hoax.

1780 An Irish Lawyer named Malone, a Shakespeare scholar, reprints the "1609 Quarto," and alters the text.

1785 James Wilmot formulates thesis that Shakespeare did not write the plays, because upon firsthand investigation in Stratford and environs, he could find almost nothing about him, and nothing which supported him being the author of anything. Wilmot concluded that Francis Bacon was the most likely candidate for the authorship based upon the circumstantial evidence he found. He based his theory on knowledge of law, circulation of blood, designations of three characters in Love's Labour's Lost -- Biron, Dumain, and Longaville which coincide with names of three ministers at the Court of Navarre where Anthony Bacon resided. Wilmot theorized that Bacon destroyed his manuscripts in order to conceal the fact that so exalted a personage had descended to the base art of play writing. Arrived at his conclusion diffidently, but firmly held it. Also found additional confirmation in the numerous extraordinary likenesses of style between the two Elizabethans. But Wilmot did not publish his theory or his findings

1786 The Story of the Learned Pig. One of the pig's friends was Will Shakspear "falsely-fathered" with plays not belonging to him.

1790 Malone writes bitterly that none of the various Editors of Shakespeare "have taken the trouble to compare" the "1609 Quarto Text" with the Benson Medley which they continue to reprint.

1793 George Steevens acts the part of agent provocateur by denouncing the Sonnets. His scathing attack resulted -- as was intended -- in bringing the Sonnets to the notice of the world. Malone rushed in to defend the literary beauty of the Sonnets and the "Sonnet Controversy" began.

1805 James Corton Cowell, Quaker of Ipswich was informed of the Baconian theory.

1806 Cowell gives two addresses before the Ipswich Philosophic Society, which passed into the possession of the University of London Library, ad was there discovered by Professor Allardyce Nicoll. (See 1932)

1837 Lord Macaulay -- wrote on Bacon. Tendency to judge with extreme harshness. "Take Macaulay with a grain of salt." -Winston Churchill

1848 Joseph Hart, first anti-Stratfordian standard bearer, New York lawyer -- not a Baconian. He didn't venture a guess who wrote the Shakespearean works.

1857-1861 Spedding's work on Bacon.

1856-57 Delia Bacon makes her hypothesis public and goes on lecture tour declaring the revolutionary idea that Bacon wrote Shakespeare.

1856 William Henry Smith's book Bacon and Shakespeare

1859 Delia Bacon dies at 48.

1880 "We do not know half enough about Lord Bacon -- let the critics go to Hell." Nietzsche

1883
The Bacon-Shakespeare Craze in Atlantic Monthly Mrs. Pott publishes the Promus, Bacon's notebooks, with many parallel quotes and ideas found in the plays. Very strong argument for Bacon's authorship.

1884 By this time the authorship controversy had stirred France, Germany, and India, as well as England and the U.S. and had produced over 250 books, pamphlets, and articles.

1885-6 The Bacon Society founded by Constance Pott, and Baconiana Anthology started.

1887-88 Ignatius Donnelly The Great Cryptogram. Donnelly Tribunal of Literary Criticism to try the case. Articles in The Arena.

1893 Dr. Owen wrote a pamphlet of rebuttal to above: Request to Reopen Brief for Plaintiff. (request was ignored).

1893-98 Various volumes of Dr. Orville Owen appeared under the title Sir Francis Bacon's Cipher Story, published by Howard Publishing Company, Detroit, Michigan. Includes Mary, Queen of Scots, 1894

1896 George Cantor finds "The Harleian Miscellany" in the British Museum -- the source of 32 elegiac poems on the death of the Lord Chancellor (Manes Verulamiani). These had been printed as extracts in 1640, and in full form in 1730.

1899-1900 Elizabeth Wells Gallup publishes The Biliteral Cypher of Sir Francis Bacon

1909 Eight Shakespeare Quartos (from early 1600's) found in Francis Bacon's library inside the new Gorhambury estate.

1909 Is Shakespeare Dead? Mark Twain's book comes out and he presents his life long interest on the authorship issue by refuting the Stratford Myth and backing Bacon as the Shakespeare author.

1910 Bacon is Shakespeare by Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence

Gallup says: That the cipher message is enclosed in the works I have deciphered I know, from years of hard and exhaustive study. There is no more doubt of the existence of the cipher and its message than there is of the Morse alphabet and its use at the present day. The study has been of thousands of pages, comparison and classification of hundreds of thousands of the italic letters, and I have the right to claim, and insist, that I know.

1915
The Greatest of Literary Problems, James Finney Baxter by 1915 there were 10,000 volumes written about Shakespeare.

1917 Mrs. Bunten discovered Anthony Bacon's passports were signed with the names Biron, Dumain, Longaville and Boyesse. All were characters in Love's Labors Lost, set in Navarre.

1922 Walter Conrad Arensberg -- with passion for anagrams began with the Cryptography of Dante. This led him to Shakespeare. He endowed the Francis Bacon Foundation on the campus of Pomona college in Claremont.

1931 March 31. Shakespeare's Diary of the Personal Poems of Francis Bacon first published, in which, according to Alfred Dodd," the Sonnets were arranged in their correct numerical (sonnet 23 is first) and chronological order under their Themes and captioned as in the original MS. All the hitherto Secret Themes are openly declared for the first time."

1932 Professor Allardyce Nicoll discovers Cowell's addresses, (based upon Wilmot's researches and theories) which postulate that Bacon wrote Shakespeare, and publishes them in the N.Y. Times Literary Supplement, giving Wilmot his due.

1934 Death of Elizabeth Wells Gallup

1937 The Sixth Edition of Shakespeare's Sonnet-Diary. The long-drawn plan, extending over three hundred years, has been brought to a successful conclusion. The Poet-Prince can now speak openly in his own words to his countrymen of the emotions which swept his soul. (Dodd)

1954 Francis Bacon Foundation endowed on the Pomona College campus in Claremont, California.

1958 The Poacher from Stratford -- Frank Wadsworth (lacks documentation)
Shakespeare and his Betters -- R.C. Churchill

1959-60 Journal of the American Bar Association: Shakespeare Cross-Examined.

1961 400th anniversary of Bacon's birth celebrated by the Bacon Society at Gray's Inn.

1962 Shakespeare and his Rivals -- George McMichael & E.M. Glenn, eds.
The Shakespeare Claimants -- H.N. Gibson

1965 Reply by Milward W. Martin in Was Shakespeare Shakespeare? A Lawyer Reviews the Evidence.

1973 Margaret Barsi-Green I, Prince Tudor Wrote Shakespeare.

1975-6 Dame Daphne Du Maurier writes The Golden Lads and The Winding Stair. Books about the lives of Francis, Anthony and Essex.

1985 Discovery of a Rosicrucian Mural in St. Albans (Bacon's hometown) from 1600 that depicts a Shakespeare scene from Venus and Adonis.

1989 Cosmic Eggs and Quantum Bacon a full-length metaphysical comedy by Tom Mellett is produced at University of Texas at Austin. The plot involves Leonardo da Vinci and Francis Bacon reincarnating as twins into a modern family to re-unite with Will Shakspur. Niels Bohr, Einstein and God appear, with Bohr playing Cupid in a way inspired by Bacon's 1609 essay on "Cupid and the Atom."

1992 Discovery of partial manuscript from Elizabethan time that contains 50 lines from Henry IV, handwriting verified to be Bacon's by Maureen Ward Gandy, leading graphologist of England. British newspapers publish the story.

1994 BBC Program -- A Battle of Wills: Who Wrote Shakespeare? Bacon, Oxford, Marlowe?

1997 Penn Leary, Paul Dupuy, Francis Carr, establish first Baconian web-sites.
"Anne Boleyn", a cipher play, considered for production at the Globe Theatre in London. Project of Mark Rylance, artistic director and actor who has a very high regard for Bacon as the author of the Bard's plays.

1997 Elizabeth Wrigley--curator of Francis Bacon Library in Claremont, CA. for over 50 years, dies.
October, Launching of SIRBACON website.

1998 Baconiana, issue 195, published by the Francis Bacon Society
The Bacon-Shakespeare Question book by Nigel Cockburn

1999 June, issue 196 of Baconiana. This issue is largely devoted to the cross references between Don Quixote and the entries found in Bacon's notebook the Promus 177pages[/quote]
 
I’m simply going to post three (how appropriate!) short videos by a fellow initiated traveller on the road, Alan Green.

Chiming in to say that I've received a copy of Mr. Green's 'Dee-Coding' book, and must say from my initial scan there was a lot of work done; packed with interesting illustrations et cetera, and can't wait to get into it (should have read it prior to posting some of the above). From what can be found, Alan Green published Book 1 (2011), and do not know for looking if he had written a further continuation?

Noticed Mr. Dee on an associated Barcode page: 1589088729953.png :cool2: (he was 007).

One last very brief mention of Alton Towers (Castle). From this link there is the short piece beginning 1294 with the birth of Elizabeth de Clare:

Elizabeth de Clare, the youngest daughter Gilbert, 9th Earl of Clare, was born in 1294. Elizabeth married John de Burgh, son of the Earl of Ulster, when she was 14 but he died five years later. While Elizabeth was waiting for her inheritance, the marcher lord, Theobald Verdun kidnapped her and took her to his castle at Alton where he married her against her will. However, Theobald Verdun died six months after the wedding.

Edward II decided to keep Elizabeth in custody at Bristol Castle. The following year, she was granted her share of the Clare inheritance when she agreed to marry Roger Damory, another one of the king's supporters.

In 1322 Roger Damory changed sides and fought for the Earl of Lancaster at Boroughbridge. Damory was captured during the battle and was later executed for treason. Elizabeth had remained loyal to Edward and she was allowed to keep her estates. The king now decided it would be better if Elizabeth remained a widow.

Elizabeth was one of the richest women in England. However, unlike a lot of rich people, Elizabeth believed it was important to help the poor. Her accounts show that in one five-month period she gave help to over 5,000 different people. Of these, 800 received a daily allowance from Elizabeth.

Elizabeth de Clare disagreed with the view that serfs should not go to school. She arranged for a large number of people who lived in her villages to be educated. She also paid for those boys who showed talent to be educated at Oxford and Cambridge universities.

In 1336 Elizabeth supplied the money for the foundation of Clare College, Cambridge. This provided an education for twenty scholars. As well as donating a considerable amount of money she also became involved in deciding what the students should study. Students at Clare College attended lectures on law, medicine, religion and the arts.

Elizabeth de Clare died in 1360.
 
Roman city of Verulamium (modern St Albans)”


There was something about your comment and images of St. Alban that stuck with me the other day Voyageur;


Q: ...How does this relate to St. Augustine

A: St. Albans.


That also seemed compounded by the relationship above?


Augustine's impact on Western Christian thought can hardly be overstated; only his beloved example Paul of Tarsus, has been more influential, and Westerners have generally seen Paul through Augustine's eyes."...


And I couldn't figure out if was something about Paul or just the name?


From the Roman name Augustinus, itself derived from the Roman name AUGUSTUS.

...the title given to Octavian, the first Roman emperor. He was the adopted son of Julius Caesar...


And then bugger me, before going to sleep I picked up ‘The Zelator’ for a few minutes only to begin reading about Hedsels adventures in Mesoamerica and Monte Alban!

On reading the footnote I then immediately thought of you and Michael BC and that you might appreciate the coincidence? :-)


m.jpg


There is a further mystery in his consistently pointed use throughout his ‘Whole Body of Work’ of the letter ‘W’ and its inverse the letter ‘M’….


Also that the imagery of dancing figures, linked chakras, upside down W's and 'Alban' also happened to remind me of what I was trying to think of in the first place...



Gaius Julius Caesar was born into a patrician family, the gens Julia... The Julii were of Alban origin...


Thought it rang a bell :rolleyes:
 
I looked into this a while back and came to the conclusion that it was Francis Bacon with other poets.
I was taken up with delusional glee--so it was Bacon. Now I don't know.
I don't know enough about Rosicrucianism and am not up to speed on geometry to contribute at that level.
When I played Pick I felt I really nailed the part because I understood part of it.
Little did I Know.
The act three monologue I didn't really understand, in terms of the larger context putting it together, and so even forgot my lines in one performance.
Michael B-C, the videos are amazing.
 
Sonnet 146 is very uplifting although the morbidly of the last line, though extremely graceful and beautiful gives me pause.
 
I haven’t posted here for months and months. You can imagine why. However that doesn’t mean I’ve been idle; quite the opposite in fact, because from late March up to relatively recently I undertook a near whirlwind, deep dive research process on this topic that was part defiance at the COVID mass insanity making and part a much needed effort in personal sanity maintenance i.e. if the world about me is planning on going mad, I’m going to really commit to a deepening of my knowledge on some subject that inspires me, just so I can keep my head above water!

It was indeed a great comfort at the time and a hugely fascinating, even perversely exciting, 6 months plus of serial reading, hunting for clues, joining up of a whole set of new dots, etc. The fact that I’ve slowed to a trickle of late is partly because my other duties in life have taken on an increasingly pressing nature, partly because I think the speed and intensity of the effort was in danger of becoming a drain not a nourishment, and partly because I’ve become some what inert of late as a result of the implications of what I’ve been uncovering and piecing together. The whole process has taken on such a complex, widely spread, multi-layered, subtle and (possibly) deeply important significance, that I cannot possible hope to convey the mountain of data, connections and implications I have by now collected in any series of posts let alone one – its more like a 400 page book than a 400 word offering here (fat chance!), and I’m sure neither you or I have the mental space to entertain such a process at this stage.

However the matter is constantly playing on my mind and I would appreciate the chance to share some form of outline distillation of some key markers, so if you will grant forbearance I’m going to unpack a fraction of my findings in a pretty much unsupported manner I’m afraid, in the form of a thinly outlined working hypothesis so that those who have hitherto found this subject of interest may get a semi-digestible insight into where all this has been leading me.

So here goes…

This thread started out with the assumption that the man known as William Shakespeare was in fact not the man from Stratford born as William Shakspere. If possible that has become even more demonstrably false. The evidence I’ve accumulated for this fact is now overwhelming.

However in March, having begun to ask the question ‘Yes, but so what?’, I began to pursue that question relentlessly and by implication to see if I could work out who the man behind this mask really was and why all the game playing and to what purpose?

So to my general conclusions:



NO.1 Shakespeare was not a single person but a name deliberately crafted and then hidden behind by what we might call a secret society, brotherhood or philosophical and even political movement.

The most common fault of all historical examinations is pre-assumptions about the shared given context; think of the break through in biblical studies made by the Copenhagen School when they ditched the established practice of just accepting as fact that the bible was essentially historical.

So working forwards into the Elizabethan/Jacobean time itself, not backwards towards it through the mire of accumulated fabrications that land like a leaden hand on the First Folio of 1623 (published 7 years after the death of the man from Stratford), we find that the original given name was that of SHAKE-SPEARE.

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This hyphenated form was most regularly used from the get go when the process began and was commonly utilized right up to the time when the first folio was published (with its accompanying several ‘national’ monuments) with no hyphen in sight whereby the false creed of Mr. William Shakespeare of Stratford was signed and sealed for good by the very group who had created the mask in the first place.

There never has been an English surname - or source for same - in the form of a double barrelled, hyphenated SHAKE-SPEARE. There is zero etymological connection between this name and the root name of the Shakspere family of Stratford. The meanings, derivations, linguistic construction are completely different whilst obviously sounding or seeming identical.

1594 - Henry V1 Part 1 - 1st edition.jpg

It is also important to note that in the original printed quartos and other such associated first publications of many of the plays and poems, that the above headpiece design/motif appeared over and over again (in 4-5 variations on a theme but all parading this double ‘A’ motif). I have counted no less than 22 times this occurred and there are many more in associated philosophical and poetic texts that do not carry the SHAKE-SPEARE name but are clearly aligned or in some way reflective of the movements underlying purpose. It is also connected to Alpha and Omega but I'll leave that key issue for now.

This emblem is representative of a balancing of a deep duality that runs as a seem of gold through all the works. It is the signature of the Gemini and a sign post to the reality of ‘both your poets’, the series of references in the sonnets that has much baffled scholars for good reason.

The esoteric title, or statement, or self-identifier, SHAKE-SPEARE, is extremely ancient in source meaning. The same goes for the other esoteric tag line SWEET SWAN OF AVON. Neither of these have anything to do with Stratford or Warwickshire. They are occult terms with very profound roots in hidden knowledge and processes.

If you are a SHAKE-SPEARE, you are a sworn initiate of the gods Apollo and Athena. Not in some affected, courtly manner, but in the deepest possible level of understanding and acting out of that being. You are a self-acknowledged heretic to the dogma of western, Christianized status-quo thinking; rather, you are seeking to reanimate the pre-Fall condition; you are a seeker after the ancient Hyperborean state of knowledge and being; you are an avowed slayer of the dragon of darkness, of ignorance, of superstition; you are an initiated being of the light and hidden knowledge. In simplistic terms you are mentally, psychologically, philosophical and spiritually equipped to ‘shake’ your ‘speare’ of accumulated wisdom and absolute dedication solely in defence of the lord of light/illumination and on behalf of the wise, all powerful goddess of all things. You are above all, life-committed to absolute secrecy, self immolation and unrelenting purpose. It was viewed by its followers as the highest possible calling for humankind, on a par with the path of the gods. You are in this world but not of this world. You are charged with enacting out the cosmic drama on behalf of all humanity.

The name ‘William’ derives from and refers to an Apollonian cap or helmet. The Gemini are also swans and they are spear-shakers. They wear Apollonian caps or helmets and there are two of them.

The myth of the Gemini is used not only as an allegory of the dual nature or polarity of all things and the necessary ‘striving in friendship’ that is required to bring about harmony, beauty, joy and illumination, but it also signifies the combined divine-human nature that we each are, which is expressed in the Son of God/son of man formula associated with Christ - ‘Son of God’ referring to the immortal nature of the divinity within each of us, and ‘son of man’ referring to the mortal nature of our personality and its physical body.

By understanding the Shakespearean Gemini in this way we can come to understand the deeper reasons for ‘the Bard’s’ anonymity and pseudonym, which he examines in ‘his’ Sonnets.


NO. 2. I believe at its onset this movement was essentially STO in motivation but gradually became subsumed and overwhelmed/high jacked by an STS party/program which having infested it then used it as a key element of the process of world domination we are still seeing play out today.

Again looking into the Elizabethan era from the perspective of the previous centuries, with the ascendancy to the throne of Elizabeth, one stands at a monumental cross roads between the last days of the ancient world and the beginning of the modern age. For some particular reason of karma and fate, the future of the world lay in balance on this small island with a complex, dark history, yet one that still retained some active knowledge from its ancestry as to its calling as the lost land of Hyperborea.

The previous century or more had witnessed endless bloody civil wars between effectively the guardians of the ancient tradition and a new emerging self aggrandizing class. The birth and forward propulsion of the human self-ego was about to explode into history. The war of the white rose versus the red rose had been deeply meaningful at an esoteric level and the modernistic leaning red rose emerged triumphant and would find its apotheosis in the Rosicrucian movement that would follow brandishing a cross and a blood red rose into a reforming of the world in its own terrible image. Also the last of the great goddess knowledge that survived inside monastic Catholicism and in the Gothic inspired buildings that littered the land was coming under increasing attack and pressure by the new irrational ‘rational’ mind of rampant reforming Protestantism.

The upshot was a contradictory set of intense pressure cookers that became personified in the literal and absolute veneration of a female virgin monarch (a living goddess/queen) by a culture still saturated in this ancient mindset, and swelling to the rebirth of chivalric Arthurianism, sharing an intense, richly imaginative, poetic mindset that captured many in the ruling dynasties and a re-blossoming belief in a non-materialistic, syncretic, unifying cosmic order. Yet this rich cooking pot of deeper meanings was beginning to feel the growing menace and influence behind the mounting threat posed by an increasingly patriarchal, centralizing authority emerging from an imperialistic, Old Testament inspired new mindset that was leaning more and more towards left brain reason, systems and control. A new ‘chosen people’ were in danger of lurching from Bethlehem once more to be born. The whole society was controlled and micromanaged top down from this strange, precariously balanced and contradictory perspective; for 60 extraordinary years under Elizabeth it kept and maintained this dream like state ahead of the mental breakdown that reared up ahead.

Into this suspended animation of convergent and conflicting realities sprang a collection of the most astonishing people imaginable who would literally change our world. And running along the bed of this river, hidden from plain sight, were a number of secret groups, factions or movements. In the main they do not seem to have formalized other than the ever constant Masons (in some precursor form to that which emerged officially into view in the mid 18th century) who it is clear were central to all these processes. And into this hotch-potch poured a tidal surge of material rediscovered and reinterpreted by the Renaissance in such areas as astrology/astronomy (the same thing then), ancient religious and mythic texts, philosophy, mathematics and the lost sciences, as well as a host of divinely derived (yes channeled) texts, magical manuals and of course the Trojan Horse – Cabala – and the occult texts of the Rosicrucian movement culminating at the turn of the century. What is loosely called Neo-Platonism thus produced an explosion of creativity and knowledge expansion; think an extended late 1960s on LSD from day one with the dark side magnified tenfold!

And if this wasn’t enough, global nature was going crazy. A period of unprecedented upheaval, disease, plague, eruptions, comets, floods, catastrophes, signs and portents leading to a mini-ice age kicking off in 1600. With the odd UFO sighting thrown in for fun! And of course three monumentally influential Super Nova/Nova – one in Cassiopeia (the QUEEN OF HEAVEN), one in Cygnus THE SWEET SWAN OF AVON and one in Ophiuchus (THE WISE SERPENT BARER and HIGH SHAMAN OF THE SKIES). To knowledgeable onlookers this confirmed what they already knew – something of immense import was being born and something else was due to suffer and die. The only question being which side of the balance the whole equation would fall.


NO.2. Into this extraordinary time came SHAKE-SPEARE. Formed as a secret PLEIADES, (around 7 ‘stars’, comprising 1 acknowledged Master, 5 close acolytes and 1 ‘hidden’ gemstone, supported by multiple in the know/need to know initiates), with Sir Francis Bacon – eventually Baron Verulam and Viscount St. Alban - the clear Master of the movement (or so he thought).

It is crystal clear that to all intense and purposes Sir Francis Bacon was Shake-speare – or rather he was the guiding light, the Master Boatman, the grand mind-maker, the green fingered germinator and propagator. I will go so far as to say it is his educated, philosophical, editorial pen that shapes much if not all of the project, as well as what came after. Darn it, if all those Baconians weren’t right all along!

However it’s never that simple. For it was a multilayered team effort with multiple pens involved much in the way a renaissance master worked through a studio with multiple gifted painters of similar training, touch and shared perspective, so as to create a seemingly single minded painting with no clear indication of who painted which part or finished or added what final flick of the brush. And I have come to suspect that one such ‘painter’ - the ‘hidden’ gemstone - was the mighty, deep and silently reverberating voice of the divine universe in human form, who showed no face and has been only rarely guessed at by those looking for one name, one writer. And he was the mercurial Sir William Derby, 6th Earl of Stanley, known to all his friends as ‘Will’. The importance of utilizing one’s ‘Will’ to become enlightened is Shake-spearean through and through.

Together these two mighty minds and heaven-blessed poets crafted the vast majority of the central fugal force we know as Shake-speare. They were indeed ‘rival poets’. Because they had very different yet - if for a while - highly complimentary voices. And whilst Bacon struggled very publicly and politically, took all the esteem from those in the know and all the public gain and pain (though still perversely hidden to posterity), Derby lived an essentially private and secluded life, removing himself from all politics and public life (despite his mighty ancestry and his direct lineage to the throne), and went to his grave completely silently with no thought to future knowledge of his true life’s purpose.

Here he is, painted as a young man… once in his late teens and once in his late 20s. Please note the invisible pen gesture in the right hand of the youth in the first image and the crossed legged pose of the young man below, a secret initiate sign of great antiquity – found on the two Gemini/torch barring partners of Mithras, as a sign of the Knights Templars and also as a signifier of the Indian god Krishna – as well as appearing on the Shakespeare monument in Westminster Abbey. The hand-on-heart miniature is by Nicholas Hilliard and today carries the enigmatic if highly significant title ‘Young man among roses’. Note the identical climbing rose enveloping the bower of the youth.

William Stanley, sixth Earl of Derby.jpg


Nicholas_Hilliard_-_Young_Man_Among_Roses_-_V&A_P.163-1910.jpg


And here is the prodigious young Sir Francis Bacon

3. 18-year_old_Francis_Bacon.jpg


NO.3 ‘BOTH YOUR POETS’

  • Both lives overlapping with their life dates constantly matching those necessary for being Shakespeare.
  • Both born into astonishing households with profound royal connections.
  • Both grew up in houses bedecked with cosmically derived iconography.
  • Both regarded as child prodigies.
  • Both growing up obsessed and immersed in drama, learning and poetry.
  • Both fixated by a life impacting relationship with a single brother (a central tenant of Shake-speare’s Gemini driven mind).
  • Both undertaking a multi-year European and world pilgrimage filled with hidden mystery and purpose.
  • Both saturated in esoteric and hidden knowledge/teaching.
  • Both disappearing into the Spanish Pyrenees where they may have engaged with high initiates.
  • Both university trained (Oxford/Cambridge)
  • Both trained in law to the highest level.
  • Both heavily involved with the emerging professional theatre.
  • Both renowned by their early adult lives for the extraordinary faculty, complexity and breadth of their learning and minds.
  • Both heavily influenced by and connected to Dr John Dee, the great magical sage and scientist of the age.
  • Both hint at being heavily involved in ‘divine’ channeling.
  • Both written about as master playwrights and poets.
  • Both connected by a complex law suit centered upon disinheritance – a deeply significant shake-spearean emblem. .
  • Both laying claim to a sacred and deeply meaningful ancient title (Bacon as Baron Verulam/Viscount St. Alban and Stanley as King of the Isle of Man).
  • Both connected to the founding process of America.
  • Both independently believed by different researchers to be Shake-speare.

Both also had remarkable hand writing: Note the strange spacing and colon of Derby’s – he always signed his name this way. Compare to William Shakspere of Stratford (and there is much debate if any of these were actually his as the question remains open as to whether he could even write at all!)

2. 1920px-Francis_Bacon_Signature.jpg

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Note that both men signed their names with a 4/5 letter ratio.
  • Francis Bacon = 100 in simple cipher (with Bacon = 33). The number 33 is in essence Francis Bacon and was used repeatedly through many works to signify his presence and influence.
  • Will Derby = 103 in simple cipher (with Will = 52, an absolutely pivotal Shake-speare number, and Derby 51 = twin co-existent numbers. William also = 74, another important numer).
The key shake-speare texts are absolutely riddled with hidden code and repeated use of hidden numerological number patterns. I will not outline this fact here but if you saw the scale and implication it would truly boggle the mind!

In particular Francis Bacon was seen Europe wide as the master code maker. His most lasting legacy was the binary code that would go on to be the basis of all modern computing. This is not without huge significance and implication.



NO. 4 Stanley’s home base in Lancashire bordering the family lands in Cheshire/Welsh borders, now utterly vanished following its deliberate leveling in the English Civil War, was as close to Hogwarts as you can imagine!

Lathom House, the ancient abode of the Stanley’s, was a castle fortress of such complexity and ‘magical’ design that it was said to be the greatest royal residence in all England.

"In the centre was a lofty tower, called the Eagles; it had two courts, for mention is made of a strong and high gateway before the first. The whole was surrounded with a wall two yards thick, flanked by nine towers, and this again guarded a moat eight yards wide and two deep."​

“… Besides all that is said hitherto of the walls, towers, and moat, there is something so particular and romantic in the general situation of this house, as if Nature herself had formed it for a stronghold or place of security.’
"... and there can be little doubt as to the carving referring to Lathom House (and most probably to the Hall now alluded to) from the circumstance of the Stanley legend being represented in a tree, and a rebus of masons or stone-cuttters (termed Lathomi and Latomi, in mediæval Latin).​
"... A further residence of considerable dimensions at this time stood in the New Park, about half a mile from Lathom House, which was pulled down in the early part of the last century [1700s]. This house was called "Horton," "Alton", or " Halton Castle."​

I have an instinct that this Alton and these towers may well be what the C’s referred to when they speak of the need to research Alton Towers.

I think this is complimentary to Voyageurs previous great posts on the conection of Bacon to St Albans and Alton Towers.



I will leave it there. I’ve barely scratched the surface but I hope it gives you food for pleasurable thought.

Learning is fun!
 
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Well Michael-B-C, there was a few times when I read your latest post that I forgot to breathe. It was simply riveting. What researching you must have done. What can I say except thank you and more please.
I will leave it there. I’ve barely scratched the surface but I hope it gives you food for pleasurable thought.
Hope you can get the time and strength to post some more.
 
- the ‘hidden’ gemstone - was the mighty, deep and silently reverberating voice of the divine universe in human form, who showed no face and has been only rarely guessed at by those looking for one name, one writer. And he was the mercurial Sir William Derby, 6th Earl of Stanley, known to all his friends as ‘Will’. The importance of utilizing one’s ‘Will’ to become enlightened is Shake-spearean through and through.

Fantastic post Michael,

Didn't want it to end...

The 'Will' comment in the context of 'Stanley' didn't go unnoticed btw - 'Stone clearing' quite the allegory.


"... and there can be little doubt as to the carving referring to Lathom House (and most probably to the Hall now alluded to) from the circumstance of the Stanley legend being represented in a tree, and a rebus of masons or stone-cuttters (termed Lathomi and Latomi, in mediæval Latin).

As was, I thought, inclusion of a 'rebus' of 'stone workers';

  1. A kind of word puzzle which uses pictures to represent words or parts of words.
  2. (heraldry) A pictorial suggestion on a coat of arms of the name of the person to whom it belongs.

Considering Rebis within a discussion of 'twins' anyway?


:flowers:
 
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