Baconian theory

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The Baconian theory of Shakespearean authorship holds that Sir Francis Bacon, wrote the plays conventionally attributed to William Shakespeare.

Contents

Terminology

Sir Francis Bacon, was a major scientist, philosopher, courtier, diplomat, essayist, historian and successful politician, who served as Solicitor General (1607), Attorney General (1613) and Lord Chancellor (1618).

Those who subscribe to the theory that Sir Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespeare work generally refer to themselves as Baconians while those who take the position that William Shakspere of Stratford wrote the works they call Stratfordians.

Baptised as William Shakspere, the Stratford man used several variants of his name during his lifetime including Shakespeare. Baconians use "Shakspere" for the glover's son from Stratford and "Shakespeare" or "Shake-speare" for the author to avoid the assumption that the Stratford man wrote the work.

Overview

The most popular view today is that William Shakspere of Stratford who was an actor in the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men) wrote the poems and plays that bear his name and it is the view that most academic scholars subscribe to. However, Baconians believe that scholars have been so focused on the details of Shakspere's life that they have neglected to investigate the wider picture, namely, the many facts that they claim connect Sir Francis Bacon to the Shakespeare work.

The Baconian's first objective is to attempt to establish a reasonable doubt in the Stratford man's authorship claim, then having justified the need to examine an alternative candidate, cite the many perceived connections between Sir Francis Bacon and the Shakespeare work (see Shakespearean authorship). As with all alternative candidates, the Stratford man is claimed to have acted as a mask for the concealed author.

The main Baconian evidence consists of the following: the presentation of a motive for concealment; the circumstances surrounding the first known performance of the Comedy of Errors; the close proximity of Bacon to the William Strachey letter upon which most scholars think The Tempest was based; perceived allusions to legal personalities in the plays that Bacon knew; the many supposed parallels with the plays of Bacon's published work and entries in the Promus (Bacon's private wastebook); Bacon's interest in writing civil histories; and perceived autobiographical allusions in the plays. Since Bacon had a first-hand knowledge of government cipher methods(1) Baconians usually see it as feasible that he left his signature somewhere in the Shakespeare work.

History of Baconian theory

In a letter to the barrister and poet John Davies in 1603, Bacon refers to himself as a 'concealed poet'.(2) Consequently, Baconians claim that certain of his contemporaries knew of and hinted at his secret authorship. For example, the satirical poets Joseph Hall (1574-1656) and John Marston (1575-1634) in the so-called Hall-Marston satires,(3,4) between them discuss a character called Labeo in relation to Shakespeare's long poem Venus and Adonis (1593). Perceiving that Hall is criticising Venus and Adonis as a lewd Mirror-genre poem,(5) Marston writes 'What, not mediocria firma from thy spight?', mediocra firma being Bacon's family motto.

In 1781, a Warwickshire clergyman and scholar called James Wilmot, having failed to find significant evidence from his research in the Stratford district relating to Shakspere's authorship, suspected that Shakspere could not be the author of the works that bear his name. Wilmot was familiar with the writings of Francis Bacon and formed the opinion that he was more likely the real author of the Shakespearean canon. Persuaded of Bacon's authorship of the Shakespeare poems and plays, he related his view to James Cowell who revealed it in a paper read to the Ipswich Philosophical Society in 1805.

The idea that Sir Francis Bacon penned the Shakespeare work was revived by William Henry Smith in 1856. He found support from Delia Bacon in her book The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded(1857), in which Shakespeare was represented as a group of writers, including Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, whose agenda was to propagate a system of philosophy secreted in the text. Adopting a variation of Delia Bacon's work, Constance Mary Fearon Pott (1833-1915) founded the Francis Bacon Society in 1885, and published her Bacon-centred theory in Francis Bacon and his secret society (1891).(6)

The late 19th century interest in the Baconian theory continued the theme that Bacon had secreted encoded messages in the plays. In 1888, Ignatius Donelly, a U.S. Congressman, science fiction author, and Atlantis theorist, set out his notion of ciphers in The Great Cryptogram, while Elizabeth Wells Gallup, having read Bacon's account of his 'bi-lateral cipher' (in which two fonts were used as a method of encoding in binary format), claimed to have found evidence that Bacon not only authored the Shakespearean works but was also the eldest child of Queen Elizabeth, from a secret marriage. Unfortunately, no one else was able to discern these hidden messages.

At the end of the 20th century, Peter Dawkins(7) put forward the view that Sir Francis Bacon was the leader of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood where celestial events indicate when a reformation of the world should occur. In this theory, the members of the Rosicrucians were dealing with the accumulated wisdom of the ancients and adding wisdom of their own. In so doing they secretly created art, literature and drama, including the entire Shakespeare canon, adding the symbols of the rose and cross to their work.

More recent Baconian theory ignores the esoteric following that the theory had earlier attracted. Whereas previously, the main reason for secrecy was Bacon's desire for high office, this theory posits that his main motivation for concealment was the completion of his Great Instauration project.(8,9) The argument runs that in order to advance the project's scientific component, he intended to set up new institutes of experimentation to gather the data (his scientific 'Histories') to which his inductive method could be applied. However, he needed to attain high office to gain the requisite influence,(10) and being known as a dramatist (then a low-class profession) would have impeded his prospects. Realising that play-acting was used by the ancients 'as a means of educating men's minds to virtue,'(11) the claim is that he set out the otherwise unpublished moral philosophy component of his Great Instauration project in the Shakespeare work (moral 'Histories'). In this way, he could influence the nobility through dramatic performance with his observations on what constitutes 'good' government (e.g. Prince Hal's relationship with the Chief Justice in Henry IV, Part 2).

Autobiographical evidence

It is known that as early as 1595, Bacon employed scriveners(12) which, one could argue, would protect his anonymity and account for Heminge and Condell, two actors in Shakspere's company, remarking about Shakspere that 'wee have scarce received from him a blot in his papers'.(13) Baconians point out that Sir Francis Bacon's rise to the post of Attorney General in 1613 coincided with the end of Shakespeare the author's output. They also stress that he was the only authorship candidate still alive when the First Folio (1623) was published and that it occurred in a period (1621-1626) when Bacon was publishing his work for posterity after his fall from office gave him the free time.

Shakespeare's King Henry VIII (1613) can be interpreted as containing an allusion to Bacon's fall from office in 1621 suggesting that the play had been altered at least five years after Shakspere's death in 1616. The argument relates to Cardinal Wolsey's forfeiture of the Great Seal in the play which might be construed as departing from the facts of history to mirror Bacon's own loss. Bacon lost office on a charge of accepting bribes to influence his judgment of legal cases, whereas Wolsey's crime was to petition the Pope to delay sanctioning King Henry's divorce from Katherine of Aragon. Nevertheless, in Act 3, Scene 2, just before the Great Seal is reclaimed, King Henry's main concern is an inventory of Wolsey's wealth that has inadvertently been delivered to him:

King Henry. ... The several parcels of his Plate, his Treasure,
Rich stuffs, and ornaments of household, which
I find at such a proud rate, that it outspeaks
Possession of a subject.

A few lines later Wolsey loses the Seal with the stage direction:

Enter to Cardinal Wolsey the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Earl of Surrey
and the Lord Chamberlaine.

However, in history, only the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk performed this task(14) and Shakespeare has inexplicably added the Earl of Surrey and the Lord Chamberlaine. In Bacon's case King James 'commissioned the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Steward, the Lord Chamberlaine, and the Earl of Arundel, to receive and take charge of it'.(15) Given that Thomas Howard was the 2nd Earl of Arundel and Surrey, then the two noblemen that Shakespeare has added are two of the four that attended Bacon.

Credentials for authorship

There is evidence that appears to confirm that Bacon had some of the credentials for writing the Shakespeare work. For example, in relation to Shakespeare's extensive vocabulary, there are the words of Dr Samuel Jonson, the author of the first dictionary: 'a Dictionary of the English language might be compiled from Bacon's writing alone'.(16) The poet Percy Bysshe Shelly apparently testifies against Bacon's supposed unwavering dry legal style: 'Lord Bacon was a poet. His language has a sweet majestic rhythm, which satisfies the sense, no less than the almost superhuman wisdom of his intellect satisfies the intellect ..."(17)

In Ben Jonson's First Folio tribute to 'The Author Mr William Shakespeare' he writes:

Or, when thy sockes were on
Leave thee alone
Of all, that insolent Greece, or haughtie Rome
Sent forth, or since from their ashes come.

In a later work, Jonson uses an identical figure to commend Sir Francis Bacon: 'But his learned and able (though unfortunate) successor [Bacon] is he who hath filled up all the numbers, and performed that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or to haughty Rome ... so that he may be named, and stand as the mark of our language.'(18)

Bacon had an interest in civil histories, the evidence for this being his book History of the Reign of Henry VII (1621), his article the Memorial of Elizabeth (1608), and his letter to King James in 1610 lobbying for financial support to write a history of Great Britain stating that 'I shall have the advantage which almost no writer of history hath had, in that I shall write of times not only since I could remember, but since I could observe.'(19) For the period 1377-1603, Bacon and Shakespeare managed to avoid duplicating each other's historical ground and, in 1622, Bacon gave different excuses to Prince Charles for not working on a commissioned treatise of Henry VIII (which had already been covered by the Shakespeare play in 1613).(20) In the end, he wrote only two pages.

Gray's Inn revels 1594-5

Gray's Inn law school traditionally held revels over Christmas where dancing and feasting were complemented by plays and masques. Prior to the 1594-5 revels, the evidence points to all the performed plays being amateur productions.(21) In his commentary on the Gesta Grayorum, a contemporary account of the 1594-5 revels, Bland(22) informs us that they were 'intended as a training ground in all the manners that are learned by nobility ... dancing, music, declamation, acting.' James Spedding, the Victorian editor of Bacon's Works, thought that Sir Francis Bacon was involved in writing this account.(23) File:ChamberAccountShakespeare.jpg

The Gesta Grayorum(24) is a pamphlet of 68 pages and was first published in 1688. It informs us that the Comedy of Errors received its first known performance at these revels at 9pm, 28 December 1594 (Innocents Day) when 'a Comedy of Errors (like to Plautus his Menechmus) was played by the Players'. Whoever the players were, there is evidence that Shakspere and his company were not among them for according to the royal Chamber accounts dated 15 March 1595 (see Figure (25)) he and the Lord Chamberlain's Men were performing for the Queen at Greenwich on Innocents Day. Chambers(26) informs us that 'the Court performances were always at night, beginning about 10pm and ending at 1pm' so that their presence at both performances is unlikely. Furthermore, the Gray's Inn Pension Book that recorded all payments made by the Gray's Inn committee, exhibits no payment to either a dramatist or professional company for this play.(27) Baconians interpret this as suggesting that, following precedent, the Comedy of Errors was both written and performed by Inns of Court members as part of their participation in the Gray's Inn celebrations. There is evidence(28,29) that Bacon had control over the Gray's Inn players, and that he was treasurer(30) of Gray's Inn prior to the 1594-5 revels.

The discrepancy surrounding the whereabouts of the Chamberlain's Men is normally explained by theatre historians as an error in the Chamber Accounts. W.W. Greg suggested the following explanation:

"[T]he accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber show payments to this company [the Chamberlain's Men] for performances before the Court on both 26 Dec. and 28 Dec ... These accounts, however, also show a payment to the Lord Admiral's men in respect of 28 Dec. It is true that instances of two court performances on one night do occur elsewhere, but in view of the double difficulty involved, it is perhaps best to assume that in the Treasurer's accounts, 28 Dec. is an error for 27 Dec."(31)

Verbal parallels

File:GestaGrayorum.gif The final paragraph of the Gesta Grayorum (see Figure) uses a 'greater lessens the smaller' construction that occurs in an exchange from Act 5, Scene 1 of the Merchant of Venice (1594-97):

Ner. When the moon shone we did not see the candle
Por. So doth the greater glory dim the less,
A substitute shines brightly as a King
Until a King be by, and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brooke
Into the main of waters ...

The Merchant of Venice uses both the same theme as the Gesta Grayorum and the same three examples to illustrate it: a subject obscured by royalty, a small light overpowered by that of a heavenly body, and a river diluted on reaching the sea. Sir Francis Bacon, in an essay(32) from 1603, makes use of two of these examples: 'The second condition [of perfect mixture] is that the greater draws the less. So we see that when two lights do meet, the greater doth darken and drown the less. And when a small river runs into a greater, it loseth both the name and stream.' A figure similar to 'loseth both the name and stream' occurs in Scene 3, Act 1 of Hamlet (1600-01):

Hamlet. With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

Sir Francis Bacon was careful to cite his sources and he does not mention Shakespeare once in any of his work. Furthermore, Baconians claim that if the Gesta Grayorum was circulated prior to its publication in 1688 (and no one knows) then it was probably only among Inns of Court members.

In the nineteenth century, a waste book entitled the Promus of Formularies and Elegancies(33) was discovered containing 1,655 hand written proverbs, metaphors, aphorisms, salutations and other miscellany. Although some entries appear original, many have been drawn from the Latin and Greek writers Seneca, Horace, Virgil, Ovid; John Heywood's Proverbes (1562); Marcel de Montaigne's Essays (1575), and various other French, Italian and Spanish sources. Apart from a section at the end, Sir Edward Maunde-Thompson declared the writing to be in Bacon's hand, and in fact his signature appears on folio 115 verso. Only two folios of the wastebook were dated, the third sheet (5 December 1594) and the 32nd sheet (27 January 1595 [that is, 1596]). Many of these entries also occur in Shakespeare's First Folio and a few examples are given below:

Parolles. So I say both of Galen and Paracelsus (1603-5 All's Well That Ends Well, Act 2, Scene 3)
Galens compositions not Paracelsus separations (Promus, folio 84, verso)
Launce. Then may I set the world on wheels, when she can spin for her living (1589-93 The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 3, Scene 1)
Now toe on her distaff then she can spynne/The world runs on wheels (Promus, folio 96, verso)
Hostesse. O, that right should o'rcome might. Well of sufferance, comes ease (1598 Henry IV, Part 2, Act 5, Scene 4)
Might overcomes right/Of sufferance cometh ease (Promus, folio 103, recto)

While the orthodox view is that these are commonplace phrases, the occurrence in the last two examples of two ideas from the same Promus folio in the same Shakespeare speech must decrease this probability.

Notes

  1. Jardine, Lisa, and Stewart, Alan, Hostage to Fortune, The Troubled Life of Sir Francis Bacon (Hill and Wang: 1999), p.55
  2. Lambeth Palace MS 976, folio 4 (the signature and docket is in Bacon's hand while the body of the letter is by one of his scriveners)
  3. Hall, Joseph, Virgidemarium (1597-8), Book 2, Satire 1 ('For shame write better Labeo ...'); Book 4, Satire 1 ('Labeo is whip't and laughs me in the face ...'); Book 6, Satire 1 ('Tho Labeo reaches right ...')
  4. Marston, John, The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image And Certaine Satyres (1598), (see The Authour in prayse of his precedent poem, 'So Labeo did complain his love was stone ...' and 'Reactio' Satire IV ('Fond Censurer! Why should those mirrors seem ...')
  5. A Mirror for Magistrates (1559) was a collection of about 100 Renaissance moralistic poems on the subject of sinners suffering divine retribution. It could be argued that Venus and Adonis qualifies for the genre since Adonis's lust and his subsequent death in the boar hunt could be interpreted as divine retribution.
  6. Sirbacon.org, Constance Pott
  7. Dawkins, Peter, The Shakespeare Enigma (Polair Publishing: 2004)
  8. Spedding, James, The Works of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol.4, p.112 (Bacon comments on whether his idea of compiling Histories - some of which he wrote up himself for the natural sciences - and then applying his inductive method to them, should only apply to natural science or whether Histories were also required for ethics and politics 'It may be asked ... whether I speak of natural philosophy only, or whether I mean that the other sciences, logic, ethics, and politics, should be carried on by this method. Now I certainly mean what I have said to be understood of them all ...')
  9. Dean, Leonard, Sir Francis Bacon's theory of civil history writing, in Vickers, Brian, (Ed.), Essential Articles for the Study of Sir Francis Bacon (Sidwick & Jackson: 1972), p.219 ('Bacon believed that the chief functions of history are to provide the materials for a realistic treatment of psychology and ethics, and to give instruction by means of example and analysis in practical politics')
  10. Spedding, James, 'Of the Interpretation of Nature' in Life and Letters of Francis Bacon 1872, Vol. 3, p.85 (Bacon writes: 'I hoped that, if I rose to any place of honour in the state, I should have a larger command of industry and ability to help me in my work;')
  11. Bacon, Francis, Advancement of Learning 1640, Book 2, xiii
  12. Lambeth Palace MS 650.28 (written in Bacon's hand to his brother Anthony; 'I have here an idle pen or two ... thinking to have got some money this term; I pray send me somewhat else for me to write ...')
  13. Heminge, John, and Condell, Henry, First Folio (1623), dedication 'To the great variety of Readers'
  14. Holinshed, Raphael, The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland 1587, pp.796-7 ('the king sent the two dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk to the cardinal's place at Westminster ... that he should surrender up the greate seal into their hands')
  15. Spedding, James, Life and Letters of Francis Bacon 1872, Vol. 7, p.262
  16. Boswell, James, The Life of Samuel Johnson 1740-1795, Chapter 13
  17. Shelly, Percy Bysse, Defense of Poetry (1821), p.10
  18. Jonson, Ben, Timber: or, Discoveries; Made Upon Men and Matter (Cassell: 1889), p.60-1 (Definitions: number (n.) 1. (plural) verses, lines, e.g. 'These numbers will I tear and write in prose' Hamlet II, ii, 119; mark (n.) 1. target, goal, aim e.g. 'that's the golden mark I seek to hit' Henry VI, Part 2, I, i, 241; source Crystal, David, and Crystal, Ben, Shakespeare's Words, Penguin Books 2002)
  19. Spedding, James, The Works of Francis Bacon 1872, Vol. 6, p.274
  20. Spedding, James, The Works of Francis Bacon 1872, Vol. 6, p.267 (In a letter to his friend Tobie Matthew dated 16 June 1623, Bacon writes 'Since you say the Prince hath not forgotten his commandment touching my history of Henry the Eighth, I may not forget my duty. But I find Sir Robert Cotton, who poured forth what he had in my former work, somewhat dainty in his materials in this'; in a letter to Prince Charles in late October 1623, he says 'For Henry the Eighth, to deal truly with your Highness, I did so despair of my health this summer, as I was glad to choose some such work as I might encompass within days: so far was I from entering into a work of any length')
  21. Chambers, E.K., The Elizabethan Stage, Vols I-IV (Clarendon Press: 1945); (Gordobuc was presented before the Queen at Whitehall on 12 January 1561 written and acted by members of the Inner Temple; Gray's Inn members were responsible for writing both Supposes and Jocasta five years later; Catiline was performed by 26 actors from Gray's Inn before Lord Burghley on 16 January 1588, see British Library Lansdowne MS 55, No. iv)
  22. Bland, Desmond, Gesta Grayorum (Liverpool University Press: 1968), pp.xxiv-xxv
  23. Spedding, James, The Life and Letters of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol.1, p.325 ('his connexion with it, though sufficiently obvious, has never so far been pointed out')
  24. Gesta Grayorum, The History Of the High and Mighty Prince Henry (1688), printed by W. Canning in London, reprinted by Malone Society (Oxford University Press: 1914)
  25. Public Record Office, Exchequer, Pipe Office, Declared Accounts, E. 351/542, f.107v ... p.40 ('To William Kempe, William Shakespeare, & Richard Burbage, seruants to the Lord Chamberleyne ... upon the Councelle's warrant dated at Whitehall xv. to Marcij 1595, for twoe severall comedies or enterludes shewed by them before her majestie in Christmas tyme laste past viz St. Stephens Day and Innocents Day ...')
  26. Chambers, E.K., The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 1 (Clarendon Press: 1945), p.225
  27. Fletcher, Reginald, (Ed.) The Gray's Inn Pension Book 1569-1669, Vol. 1 (1901)
  28. British Library, Lansdown MS 107, folio 8 (letter to Lord Burghley from Francis Bacon prior to 1598 'I am sorry the joint masque from the four Inns of Court faileth ... [and] there are a dozen gentlemen of Gray's Inn that will be ready to furnish a masque; wishing it were in their powers to perform it according to their minds')
  29. Nichols, John, The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First, Vol. II (AMS Press Inc, NY: 1828), pp.589-92; (dedication to masque written by Francis Beaumont performed at Whitehall on 20 February 1613 'On Tuesday it came to Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple's turn to come with their mask, whereof Sir Francis Bacon was the chief contriver')
  30. Fletcher, Reginald, (Ed.), The Gray's Inn Pension Book 1569-1669, Vol. 1 (London: 1901), p.101
  31. W.W. Greg, ed. Gesta Grayorum. Malone Society Reprints. Oxford University Press, 1914. p. vi. This theory is echoed by Charles Whitworth, ed. The Comedy of Errors. Oxford University Press, 2002. p. 3.
  32. Spedding, James, 'A Brief Discourse tounching the Happy Union of the Kingdom of England and Scotland' (1603), in The Life and Letters of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol.3, p.98
  33. British Library MS Harley 7017; a transcription can be found in Durning-Lawrence, Edward, Bacon is Shakespeare (1910)

External links

Baconian

Stratfordian


References

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