Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Authorship -- Baconian theory
Thus Bacon states his case, and through the succeeding 368 pages of
Mrs. Gallup’s book he repeats the assertion _ad nauseam_. He makes no
attempt to prove his claim--he early allows it to be understood that he
is unable to verify his asseverations, nor does he explain how or why
his name should be Tuder, or Tidder. As the son of Lord Robert Dudley,
he would be a Dudley. The circumstantial evidence with which he
supports his case is interesting, but valueless; his conclusions are
unproven, his facts are something more than shaky. But let us pursue
the story:
“We, by men call’d Bacon, are sonne of the Sov’raigne, Queene
Elizabeth, who confin’d i’ th’ Tow’r, married Ro. D.”
Elizabeth, it appears, was once “so mad daring” as to dub Bacon, “as a
sonne of Follie,” to “th’ courageous men of our broadland.” But--
“No man hath claime to such pow’r as some shal se in mighty England,
after th’ decease of Virgin Queene E---- by dull, slow mortalls, farre
or near, loved, wooed like some gen’rously affected youth-loving
mayden, whylst she is both wife to th’ noble lord that was so sodainly
cut off in his full tide and vigour of life and mothe’--in such way as
th’ women of the world have groaninglie bro’t foorth, and must whilst
Nature doth raigne--of two noble sonnes, Earle of Essex, trained up by
Devereux, and he who doth speake to you, th’ foster sonne of two wel
fam’d frie’ds o’ th’ Que., Sir Nichola’ Bacon, her wo’thie adviser and
counsellor, and that partne’ of loving labor and dutie, my most loved
Lady Anne Bacon....”
“... My mother Elizabeth ... join’d herselfe in a union with Robert
Dudley whilst th’ oath sworne to one as belov’d yet bound him. I have
bene told hee aided in th’ removall of this obstructio’, when turni’g
on that narrowe treach’rous step, as is naturall, shee lightly leaned
upon th’ raile, fell on th’ bricks--th’ paving of a court--and so died.”
“In such a sonne,” Bacon proceeds, “th’ wisest our age thus farr
hath shewen--pardon, prithee, so u’seemly a phrase, I must speake it
heere--th’ mother should lose selfish vanitie, and be actuated only by
a desire for his advancement.”
Bacon is confident that the Queen would have acknowledged his claims
but for the advice of a “fox seen at our court in th’ form and outward
appearance of a man named Robbert Cecill, the hunchback,” who poisoned
Elizabeth’s mind against her “sonne of Follie.” Both “Francis Tudor”
(or Tidder), and his brother Essex, the “wrong’d enfan’s of a Queene,”
learned that their “royall aspirations” were to receive “a dampening, a
checke soe great, it co’vinc’d both, wee were hoping for advanceme’t we
might never attaine.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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