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.”
The “royall aspirations” of the Earl of Essex were cut short by the
sentence of death that was passed upon him by “that _mère_ and my owne
counsel. Yet this truth must at some time be knowne; had not I allow’d
myselfe to give some countenance to th’ arraingement, a subsequent
triall, as wel as th’ sentence, I must have lost th’ life that I held
so pricelesse.” And Bacon, or Francis Tidder, solaces himself, and
condones his part in the deed with the reflection that, “Life to a
schola’ is but a pawne for mankind.”
Queen Elizabeth, Bacon tells us, though already wedded “secretly to th’
Earle, my father, at th’ Tower of London, was afterwards married at the
house of Lord P----....”
Briefly, then, we have it, on the authority of the cipher translation,
that “Bacon was the son of Elizabeth and Robert Dudley, who were
married in the Tower between 1554 and 1558. Leicester’s wife did not
meet with her fatal accident until 1560. Bacon was born in January,
1561. His parents were subsequently re-married, at a date not stated,
at the house of Lord P----.”
In 1611 (_Shepheard’s Calendar_) Bacon declares “Ended is now my great
desire to sit in British throne. Larger worke doth invite my hand than
majestie doth offer; to wield th’ penne dothe ever require a greater
minde then to sway the royall scepter. Ay, I cry to th’ Heavenly Ayde,
ruling ore all, ever to keepe my soule thus humbled and contente.” But
in 1613 (_Faerie Queene_), he says, that “in th’ secrecy o’ my owne
bosome, I do still hold to th’ faith that my heart has never wholly
surrendered, that truth shall come out of error, and my head be crowned
ere my line o’ life be sever’d. How many times this bright dreeme hath
found lodgement in my braine!... It were impossible, I am assurr’d,
since witnesses to th’ marriage, and to my birth (after a proper length
of time) are dead, and the papers certifying their presence being
destroyed, yet is it a wrong that will rise, and crye that none can
hush.” In 1620 (_Novum Organum_) he has lost his “feare, lest my secret
bee s’ented forth by some hound o’ Queen Elizabeth;” but “the jealousy
of the King is to be feared, and that more in dread of effecte on the
hearts of the people, then any feare of th’ presentation of my claime,
knowing as he doth, that all witnesses are dead, and the requir’d
documents destroy’d.”
Bacon, according to the cipher, was sixteen years of age when he
learned the truth of his parentage through the indiscretion of one “th’
ladies o’ her (the Queen’s) train, who foolish to rashnesse did babble
such gossip to him as she heard at the Court.” Bacon, it seems, taxed
the Queen forthwith with her motherhood of him, and Elizabeth, with
“much malicious hatred” and “in hastie indignation,” said:
“You are my own borne sonne, but you, though truly royall, of a fresh,
a masterlie spirit, shall rule not England, or your mother, nor reigne
on subjects yet t’ bee. I bar from succession forevermore my best
beloved first borne that bless’d my unio’ with--no, I’ll not name him,
nor need I yet disclose the sweete story conceal’d thus farre so well,
men only guesse it, nor know o’ a truth o’ th’ secret marriages, as
rightfull to guard the name o’ a Queene, as of a maid o’ this realm.
It would well beseeme you to make such tales sulk out of sight, but
this suiteth not t’ your kin’ly spirit. A sonne like mine lifteth hand
nere in aide to her who brought him foorth; hee’d rather uplift craven
maides who tattle thus whenere my face (aigre enow ev’r, they say)
turneth from them. What will this brave boy do? Tell a, b, c’s?”
“Weeping and sobbing sore,” Bacon hurries to Mistres Bacon’s chamber
and entreats her to assure him that he is “the sonne of herselfe and
her honored husband.... When, therefore, my sweet mother did, weeping
and lamenting, owne to me that I was in very truth th’ sonne o’ th’
Queene, I burst into maledictio’s ’gainst th’ Queene, my fate, life,
and all it yieldeth.... I besought her to speak my father’s name....
She said, ‘He is the Earle of Leicester.... I tooke a solemne oath not
to reveale your storie to you, but you may hear my unfinish’d tale to
th’ end and if you will, go to th’ midwife. Th’ doctor would be ready
also to give proofes of your just right to be named th’ Prince of this
realm, and heire-apparent to the throne. Nevertheless, Queen Bess did
likewise give her solemn oath of bald-faced deniall of her marriage to
Lord Leicester, as well as to her motherhood. Her oath, so broken, robs
me of a sonne. O Francis, Francis, breake not your mother’s hearte. I
cannot let you go forth after all the years you have beene the sonne
o’ my heart. But night is falling. To-day I cannot speak to you of
so weighty a matter. This hath mov’d you deeply, and though you now
drie your eyes, you have yet many teare marks upon your little cheeks.
Go now; do not give it place i’ thought or word; a brain-sick woman,
though she be a Queene, can take my sonne from me.’” So Bacon leaves
her, not to search for the midwife, or cross-question the doctor, but
to “dreame of golden scepters, prou’ courts, and by-and-bye a crowne
on mine innocent brow.”
All Bacon’s confessions, if true, prove him to have been a bastard,
but this logical and inevitable conclusion he repeatedly denies. He
claims his mother’s name, and for his father, a nobleman whose wife
was living at the time of his bigamous marriage with Elizabeth. If the
marriage was valid, why were Leicester and the Queen re-married at the
house of Lord P., and in what year did the second ceremony take place?
But although anti-Baconians maintain that Bacon was not a fool, and
therefore could not have seriously advanced such claims; that if he had
done so he would have made a more plausible story of his wrongs; that
he was not a dunce, and therefore could not have written the “maudlin
and illiterate drivel” attributed to him by Mrs. Gallup, it is still
inconceivable that this cipher story is a gigantic fraud. Mr. Andrew
Lang, who makes no doubt that Mrs. Gallup has honourably carried out
her immense task of deciphering, has arrived at the conclusion that
Bacon was obviously mad.
_Bacon, the Author of all Elizabethan-Jacobean Literature._
But interesting as it is to find in Bacon yet another and hitherto an
unsuspected pretender to the throne of England, his pretensions to the
authorship of Shakespeare’s plays is a feature of even more dazzling
interest. His reasons for denying the authorship while he lived have
hitherto demanded a great deal of speculative explanation. The general
theory of the Baconites is that Bacon concealed his authorship of the
plays because such writing was held in low esteem, or as Mr. Sinnett
puts it, Bacon “shrank from compromising his social reputation by
any open connection with the despised vocation of the playwright.”
The difficulty of accepting this assumption has hitherto been found
in the fact that there was no reason why Bacon should have confined
himself to the writing of plays. In the case of Shakespeare, it was
quite understandable, for he was an actor, and the stage was his
livelihood. Bacon, on the other hand, had no love for the theatre; he
looked upon play-acting as a toy, and masques as things unworthy of
serious observations. The tone of his comments is contemptuous, and his
criticism discloses a lack of knowledge and interest in the subject.
Why should this man, who regarded the stage with ill-concealed
repugnance, have written plays which he was ashamed to own, while
all imaginative literature was open to him. The stigma which it is
erroneously alleged was attached to play-writing was not associated
with poetry; if the playwright was under a ban, the poet was on the
pedestal. There must have been a more tangible reason for Bacon’s
concealment, but we have had to wait for Mrs. Gallup’s book to disclose
it. Bacon’s object in writing was to unfold the secrets of his birth
and to ventilate his wrongs; he chose plays as his medium because, like
Mr. George Bernard Shaw, he found blank verse easier to write than
prose. He employed the pseudonyms of Greene and Peele, and the pen name
of Marlowe ere taking that of Wm. Shakespeare as his masque or vizard,
“that we should remayne unknowne, inasmuch as wee, having worked in
drama, history that is most vig’rously supprest, have put ourselfe soe
greatly in dange’ that a word unto Queene Elizabeth, without doubt,
would give us a sodaine horriblle end--an exit without re-entrance--for
in truth she is authoress and preserve’ of this, our being.”
Bacon’s first claim to authorship, apart from the works which were
issued under his own name, is to be found, according to the cipher, in
the 1596 edition of the _Faerie Queene_:
“E. Sp. could not otherwise so easilie atchieve honours that pertyne to
ourself. Indeed, this would alone crowne his head, if this were all--I
speake not of golden crowne, but of lawrell--for our pen is dipt deepe
into th’ muses’ pure source.”
The first mention of Shakespeare as Bacon’s masque appears in the J.
Roberts’ edition (1600) of _Sir John Oldcastle_ and _The Merchant of
Venice_:
“See or read. In the stage-plaies, two, the oldest or earliest devices
prove these twentie plays to have been put upon our stage by the actor
that is suppos’d to sell dramas of value, yet ’tis rightlie mine owne
labour.”
In the _Advancement of Learning_ (1605) Bacon extends his claim to
embrace the works of Robert Greene, Peele, Marlowe, and Ben Jonson:
“My stage plaies have all been disguis’d (to wit, many in Greene’s
name, or in Peele’s, Marlowe’s, a fewe, such as the Queen’s Masques
and others of this kind published for me by Jonson, my friend and
co-worker) since I relate a secret history therein, a story of so
sterne and tragick qualite, it ille suited my lighte’ verse, in the
earlier works.”
The only other persons who are permitted the privilege of communicating
with posterity, through the medium of the cipher, are Bacon’s “friends
and co-workers,” Ben Jonson and William Rawley. In the folio edition of
Jonson’s plays (1616) at Bacon’s “constantly urged request,” Jonson,
who had his friend’s “fame in heart as much as my honour and dignitie,”
writes to the decipherer:
“It shall be noted, indeed, when you uncover his stile, my works do
not all come from mine owne penne, for I shall name to you some plays
that come forth fro’ Sir F. Bacon, his worthy hand or head, I bein’ but
the masque behind which he was surely hid. Th’ play entitled _Sejanus_
was his drama, and th’ King’s, Queen’s, Prince’s Entertainments; the
_Queen’s Masques_ are his, as also th’ short _Panegyre_.”
[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE.
The Droeshout Etching, from the 1623 Folio Edition.
To the Reader.
This Figure, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the Grauer had a strife
with Nature, to out-doo the life:
O, could he but haue drawne his wit
As well in brasse, as he hath hit
His face; the Print would then surpasse
All, that was euer writ in brasse.
But, since he cannot, Reader, looke
Not on his Picture, but his Booke.
B. I.
]
But we learn that, in addition to Jonson, “my foster-brother
Anthony, my owne brother Robert, Ben Jonson, my friend, adviser and
assistant, and our private secretary,” were also “cogniza’t of the
work,” and indeed after Bacon’s death in 1626, William Rawley, his
private secretary, took up the cipher story, and completed it in
Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_, and in the 1635 editions of _Sylva
Sylvarum_ and the _New Atlantis_. It has been objected that Bacon
could not have dropped the cipher into books published after his death,
but this objection “vanishes into invisibility,” as Mr. Theobald would
say, when we remember that faithful old Rawley was living long after
Bacon’s work had been “cut short by th’ sickel o’ death.” He bobs up
serenely in _Sylva Sylvarum_, drops in another thirty pages of Bacon’s
cipher lamentations, and winds up with a dozen lines of his own “to
speak of th’ errata.” This last instalment was, it may be assumed,
written prior to 1626, and entrusted to Rawley to make use of on the
first opportunity, _i.e._, as soon as he could obtain command of the
proofs of another book.
In the first folio, published twenty years after the death of
Elizabeth, Bacon still appears to be affrighted by the memory of the
Queen; his life would still be forfeit if his identity were discovered,
“since she is my mother;” but in his valedictory address to his
decipherer, he declares that it is “not feare, but disstaste of th’
unseemly talk and much curiosity of the many who read these cipher
histories, that makes him still desirous to preserving his incognito.”
“My time of feare went from me with my greatness, but I still wish to
avoid many questionings--and much suspicion, perchance on the side of
the King, in his owne prope’ person. I have neede of the very caution
which kept these secrets from the many, when my mother made me swear
secrecy, and my life was the forfeit; nor may I now speake openly, yet
many men for a kingdom would break their oathes.”
It is possible that Bacon may have considered that “since witnesses to
th’ marriage and to my birth ... are dead, and the papers certifying
their presence” were destroyed, he would have a better chance of
obtaining credence for his story a few centuries hence than in his own
day. His belief in the credulity of posterity did not desert him:
“But my kingdome is in immortall glory among men from generatio’ unto
coming generations. An unending fame will crowne my browe, and it is
farre better worthe in any true thinking mind, I am assured, than many
a crowne which kings do have set on with shewe and ceremonie. Yet when
I have said it, my heart is sad for the great wrong that I must for
ever endure.”
Bacon appears to have foreseen that some future sceptic would question
the justice of his claims; would ask, for instance, how the hand that
wrote _Macbeth_ and _The Tempest_, came to produce such comparatively
indifferent stuff as _A Quip for an Upstart Courtier_, and he meets the
anticipated question with the following explanation:--
“It shall bee noted in truth that some greatly exceede their fellowes
in worth, and it is easily explained. Th’ theame varied, yet was always
a subject well selected to convey the secret message. Also the plays
being given out as tho’gh written by the actor to whom each had been
consigned, turne one’s genius suddainlie many times to suit th’ new man.
“In this actour that wee now emploie, is a wittie vayne different
from any formerly employed. In truth it suiteth well with a native
spirrit, humorous and grave by turnes in ourselfe. Therefore when we
create a part that hath him in minde th’ play is correspondingly better
therefor. It must be evident ... that these later dramas (this cipher
message is in the 1611 quarto of _Hamlet_) are superior in nearlie all
those scenes where our genius hath swaie”....
Over and over again, with almost childish iteration, the cipher repeats
the names of the authors whose works he claims as his own:
“Spenser, Greene, Peele, Marlowe have sold me theirs (their
names)--two or three others I have assumed upon certaine occasions such
as this (Ben Jonson’s _Masques_), besides th’ one I beare among men.”...
“My plaies are not yet finisht, but I intend to put forth severall
soone. However, bi-literall work requiring so much time, it will
readily be seene that there is much to doe aftee a booke doth seeme to
be ready for the presse, and I could not say when other plays will come
out. The next volume will be under W. Shakespeare’s name. As some which
have now beene produced have borne upon the title page his name though
all are my owne work, I have allow’d it to stand on manie others which
I myselfe regard as equall in merite.”
“My next work is not begun here: much of it shall bee found in th’
playes o’ Shakespeare which have not yet come out. We having put forth
a numbe’ of plays i’ his theatre, shall continue soe doing since we
doe make him th’ thrall to our will. Our name never accompanieth anie
play, but it frequently appeareth plainly in cipher for witty minds to
transla’e from Latine and Greeke....”
“This history (_The Tragical Historie of the Earl of Essex_) is
contained (_i.e._, hidden in cipher) in some stage plays that came
out in Shakespeare’s name. Ere long there will be many of like stile,
purpose and scope added thereto, which shall both ayd and instruct you
in th’ work. This should make it cleare, _e.g._, sixty stage-plays
which, in varyi’g stiles that are contrary to my owne well-known stile
of expression, whylst for more of our lighter work an impenetrable
mask, for a history, much too varied: hence these great plays have been
devis’d which, being similar, often held this inne’ history therein
unsuspected....”
“Several comedies, which be now strangers, as might be said, bearing at
th’ most such titles ’mongst the plaiers as they would remember, but
th’ author’s name in disguise, if it bee seen at all, will, as soone
as may be found toward and propitious, be publisht by Shakespeare,
_i.e._, in his name, having masqued thus manie of the best plaies
that we have beene able to produce. To these we are steadily making
additions, writing from two to six stage plays every year....”
“All that learne that I, who accompte th’ truth better than wicked
vanitie, publish’d manie late playes under other cognomen will think
the motive some distaste of the stage. In noe respect is it true....”
His real reason is, firstly, that “all men who write stage-playes are
held in co’tempte,” and, secondly, the plays are employed to “send out
much hidden dang’rous matter.” “In my plays matters are chosen not
alone for value as a subject to heare and no longer heed. Each play is
the meane or th’ medium, by which cipher histories are sent forth.”
“Severall small works under no name wonne worthy praise; next in
Spenser’s name, also, they ventured into an unknowne world. When I,
at length, having written in diverse stiles, found three who, for
sufficient reward in gold added to an immediate renowne as good pens,
willingly put forth all workes which I had compos’d I was bolder....”
“Th’ evidence such plays give of being from the brayne of one who
hath for manie years made himself acquainted with th’ formes and th’
methode--or art--of this dramatick or representative poetry, maketh
also my claime to other workes, which have beene publisht in various
names, undeniable. The worke, despight a variety of styles, is mine
owne....”
[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE.
The Chandos Portrait.]
“So few (plays) can bee put forth as first written without a slighte
revision, and many new being also made ready, my penne hath little
or noe rest. I am speaking of those plaies that were suppos’d Wm.
Shakespeare’s....”
“... small portions (of the cipher story) being used at one time,
sometimes in our Spenser’s name, Marlowe’s, Peele’s, and Shakespeare’s,
anon Greene’s, mine, also Ben Jonson’s, affording our diverse masques
another colour, as ’twere, to baffle all seekers, to which we shall add
Burton’s....”
“Th’ worke beareth the title of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, and will
bee put forth by Burton.”
Here is Bacon’s announcement of the publication of the First Folio:
“In our plaies ... being in the name of a man not living, there is
still more of this secret historie.... We have not lost that maske
tho’ our Shakespeare no longer liveth, since twoo others, fellowes of
our play actor--who would, we doubt not, publish those plays--would
disguise our work as well....”
“Our plaies are of diverse kindes--historie, comedie, and tragedie.
Many are upon th’ stage, but those already put forth in Wm.
Shakespeare’s name, we doe nothing doubt, have won a lasting
fame,--comedy, th’ historick drama and tragedy, are alike in favour....”
“My best playes, at present, as William Shakespeare’s work fost’red,
will as soone as one more plaie be completed, weare a fine but yet a
quiet dresse, as is seemely in plaies of as much valew and dignity
as sheweth cleerly therein, and be put foorth in folio enlarged and
multiplyed as th’ history conceal’d within th’ comedies, histories, or
tragedies required.”
Then follows a number of further recapitulations of his masques:
“Francis of Verulam is author of all the plays heretofore published by
Marlowe, Greene, Peele, Shakespeare, and of the two-and-twenty now put
out for the first time. Some are altered to continue his history....”
“Next write a comedy, a quaint device for making knowne th’ men that do
give, lend, sell, or in anie othe’ waye, have put me into possession of
their names. These I have us’d as disguises that my name might not bee
seen attached to any poem, stage-play, or anie of th’ light workes o’
this day....”
“As I have often said ... you have poems and prose workes on divers
theames in all such various stiles, as are put before th’ world
as Greene’s, as Shakespeare’s, Burto’s, as Peele’s, Spenser’s, as
Marlowe’s, as Jonso’ dramas ... for I varied my stile to suit different
men, since no two shew th’ same taste and like imagination....”
“Any play publisht as Marlowe’s, came from th’ same source as all which
you will now work out....”
“Greene, Spense’, Peele, Shakespeare, Burton, and Marley, as you may
somewhere see it, or, as it is usually given, Marlowe, have thus farre
been my masques....”
“A few workes also beare th’ name o’ my friend, Ben Jonson--these are
_Sejanus_ and th’ _Masques_, used to conceale the Iliads chiefly and to
make use o’ my newe cipher....”