Uwe came from Berlin for the seminar, which was to be held in the Padua lecture theatre, at M____ University. Of course, I thought of Merchant of Venice as soon as I heard the location announced. At dinner the night before, Uwe told me about this professor in Milan who had an apartment in Padua and let him stay with his girfriend for the weekend. When we got to the workshop, there was a framed photo on the wall, so I went over to take a look. It was of an elaborate old lecture theatre with multiple circular levels rising around a central table. The caption read: "The Anatomy Theatre at Padua University. Built at his own expense by Fabricius of Acquapendente 1537-1619, a teacher of William Harvey who studied at Padua between 1599-1603". William Harvey was the English physician who discovered the circulation of the blood. After Padua he moved to London, where he became a friend of Francis Bacon. We have this description from Bacon on observing an anatomical demonstration by Harvey:

"I have oft seene Dr. William Harvey, the new doctor from Padua, at Bartholomew Hospital, in the presence of the learned doctors, force a purple, distilling liquor through the veines of a dead body, and, after it had descended to the heart, liver, and lungs, the blood-coloured liquor returneth againe to the face which blacke and full of blood, or pale, meagre, and bloodless before, doth blush and beautifie, as if with life; you would think the body breathed; the very lippe is warme to look upon; but we are mock’d with art as there is no pulse gainst the finger and though the arteries seem full, yet no life is present. The legs, waist, arms, hands, brow, and limbs seem alive, but we can never ransome nature. The doctor was enrolled at Caius College."

The idea of the circulation of the blood turns up in many Shakespeare plays, but Harvey did not make his discovery until 1617, after William of Stratford was dead. More here.

From Bacon's Wisdom of the Ancients: VIII Endymion:

"This fable seems to describe the tempers and dispositions of princes, who, being thoughtful and suspicious, do not easily admit to their privacies such men as are prying, curious, and vigilant, or as it were sleepless, but rather such as are of an easy obliging nature and indulge them in their pleasures, without seeking anything farther, but seeming ignorant, insensible or as it were, lulled asleep before them."

From Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:

"Let me have men about me that are fat, sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o'nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look
He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous."

In Archbishop Tenison's Baconiana or Certain Genuine Remains of Sr. Francis Bacon (1679), on p. 79, we read: "And those who have true skill in the Works of the Lord Verulam, like great Masters in Painting, can tell by the Design, the Strength, the way of Colouring, whether he was the Author of this or the other Piece, though his Name be not to it."

This is proof that Bacon wrote under other names, or masks, and is of the utmost significance. When Professor Nelson, for example, offers his opinion that it is "inherently ridiculous" to imagine Bacon could have written under a mask, it's clear that he must be unaware of the plain testimony of Archbishop Tenison's remark. Time and again, one finds, as here, that the orthodox and the oxfordian alike have simply failed to perform due diligence on the Baconian position. Even orthodox Bacon scholars, who shrink from the suggestion that he was Shakespeare, have nowhere to file the Archbishop's quote. That there is a great mystery assocated with the life and work of Francis Bacon, as Ben Johnson proclaimed in his tribute poem on Bacon's 60th birthday, is proven by Archbishop Tenison's remark and the question left hanging which it implies: what exactly are the works which Bacon wrote "though his Name be not on it"?

A clue might be given by this short quote included in the tribute to Bacon, the Manes Verulamiuni, published in Latin on his death (and ignored by scholars): "You have filled the world with your writings".

It is noteworthy that Bacon had a quaint conceit of the Divine Being which he was never tired of repeating. In the preface to the "Advancement of Learning" (1640), the following passage occurs:--"For of the knowledge which contemplates the works of Nature, the holy Philosopher hath said expressly; that the glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the King is to find it out: as if the Divine Nature, according to the innocent and sweet play of children, which hide themselves to the end they may be found; took delight to hide his works, to the end they might be found out; and of his indulgence and goodness to mankind, had chosen the Soule of man to be his Play-fellow in this game." Again on page 45 of the work itself he says:--"For so he (King Solomon) saith expressly, The Glory of God is to conceale a thing, but the Glory of a King is to find it out. As if according to that innocent and affectionate play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide his works, to the end to have them found out, and as if Kings could not obtain a greater Honour, then to be God's play-fellowes in that game, especially considering the great command they have of wits and means, whereby the investigation of all things may be perfected." Another phase of the same idea is to be found on page 136. In the author's preface to the "Novum Organum" the following passage occurs:--"Whereas of the sciences which regard nature the Holy Philosopher declares that 'it is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but it is the glory of the King to find it out.' Even as though the Divine Nature took pleasure in the innocent and kindly sport of children playing at hide and seek, and vouchedsafe of his kindness and goodness to admit the human spirit for his play fellow in that game." In almost identical words Bacon suggests the same conception in "In Valerius Terminus" and in "Filum Labyrinthi". In the Epistle Dedicatorie of "The French Academie" and elsewhere the author is insisting on the same idea that "He (God) cannot be seene of any mortal creature but is notwithstanding known by his works."

from The Mystery of Francis Bacon By William T. Smedley
Chapter XIV
THE CLUE TO THE MYSTERY OFBACON'S LIFE

Last week's issue of The Spectator magazine tacitly confirmed that Bacon is Shakespeare. Judith Flander's review of Rodney Bolt's new book "History Play: The Lives and Afterlives of Kit Marlowe" opened with the following paragraph, from Nabakov's 1947 novel Bend Sinister:

"‘His name is protean. He begets doubles at every corner … On the wet morning of 27 November 1582, he is Shaxpere and [his prospective wife] is a Wately of Temple Grafton. A couple of days later he is Shagsper and she is a Hathaway of Stratford-on-Avon. Who is he? William X, cunningly composed of two left arms and a mask. Who else? The person who said (not for the first time) that the glory of God is to hide a thing, and the glory of man is to find it.’ Thus Nabokov on the mystery of Shakespeare. "

The person who originally said that the "glory of God is to hide a thing, etc" was, of course, Solomon, in Proverbs 25:2, but it was Francis Bacon who made the quotation his own. It appears so frequently in his works, for example here, that one might almost say it was his favourite quotation. Beyond question then, Nabakov was identifying that it was Bacon, in his opinion, who had written the works of Shakespeare. Thus, via Bolt via Flanders the Spectator has confirmed what we know and the world will one day embrace: Bacon is Shakespeare.

OFFICER: You here shall swear upon this sword of justice,
That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have
Been both at Delphos, and from thence have brought
The seal'd-up oracle, by the hand deliver'd
Of great Apollo's priest; and that, since then,
You have not dared to break the holy seal
Nor read the secrets in't.
CLEOMENES/DION: All this we swear.
LEONTES: Break up the seals and read.

- from The Winters Tale, page 287 of the Comedies in the First Folio

"The spirit in Hamlet bears two names: Ghost and Spirit. Ghost is the personal name, whereas it is almost invariable referred to by the speakers as Spirit, and its statement begins with: I am thy Father's Spirit.

The word Spirit (in Latin Spiritus) also plays a great part in Bacon's scientific writings. The Spirit-theory, as will soon be briefly shown, is one of the principal points in Bacon's natural-philosophy. This spirit-doctrine is based on the views held by the natural-philosophers, Paracelsus, Telesius and Severinus Danus.

Theophrastus Paracelsus, the great Swiss thinker (he lived from 1493 to 1541) set up the theory; Bernadinus Telesius Consentinus, the Italian natural-philosopher (1508 - 1588) enlarged upon it and Petrus Severinus Danus, the Danish physician (died in 1602) reduced it to a distinct system. Bacon understood no German, or, at most, very little thereof. He can scarcely have studied the intellectually-rich and almost countless writings and pamphlets of Paracelsus as they were written in a style of German that was still clumsy and indistinct. But Bacon knew his theory from the principal work of Bernadinus Telesius of Cosenza, De Rerum Natura (Concerning the Nature of Things), of which the first two books appeared in 1565 and the whole was completed in 1586; he, furthermore, knew this theory thanks to the work of the Dane Petrus Severinus: Idea Medicinae Philosophicae (The Idea of a Philosophical Medical System), which work was written in clear and lucid Latin and serbed him (Bacon) as instructor in the science of healing, the work being based on natural science. When Bacon, in quite early youth, began to sketch out the plan of his Great Instauration - and we find traces of this aim as far back even as before his fourteenth year - the works of Telesius and Severinus were the newest in the field of natural-philosophy. Even Bacon himself, who very rarely mentions the names of other investigators, mentions the works above-named at short intervals in the 4th Chapter of the 3rd Book of his Encyclopedy: ("the Theory of Theophrastus Paracelsus, eloquently reduced into a body and harmony by Severinus the Dane; or that of Telesius of Consentium"), and he mentions two of them again (Bernadinus Telesius and Paracelsus) in the 3rd Chapter of the 4th ook, wherein he discusses the question of the human soul in detail.

But, as we shall soon see, the Spirit in Hamlet is not a being created at will by poetical imagination but clearly that personification of the natural-philosophical ideas of the spirit according to Bacon's views. And thus the views of Paracelsus accord with thos of Marcellus, while those of Bernadinus Telesius harmonise with those of Barnardo in the first act of Hamlet. And Hamlet himself represents the ideas of the third in the trio, namely, of the physician Severinus Danus (in English: the melancholy Dane). The time is out of joynt and Hamlet is born to set it right! He, like Severinus Danus, deals with comparative anatomy. Like Severinus Danus he is enamoured of that healing-art which is based on examination into natural laws."

- from The Shakespeare Secret by Edwin Bormann, 1895

I emailed Prof Nelson out of courtesy to inform him that I had broadcast his privately expressed views on the Northumberland Manuscript to the world on this blog (see entry below). He wrote back promptly telling me to do what I like, that he had more important things to work on and not to contact him anymore! Here we have a perfect microscosm of the orthodox authorship position. Confronted with the undeniable evidence of Bacon's authorship, the Stratfordian can only refuse to face it. The Northumberland Manucript is a forbidden uncomfortable provocative document which at a stroke solves and determines this entire supposedly indeterminable puzzle. There can be no possible alternative interpretation of it's implication. It belonged to Bacon. It has his name and Shakespeare's all over it it. It was the cover to a bundle of manuscripts which included both works by Bacon and plays of Shakespeare. And it explicity identifies Bacon as the author of these Shakespeare plays. Think about it: here were the only known existing Shakespeare manuscripts, nestled beneath the cover which attests to their origin. This is what everyone has been searching for, the Holy Grail of Shakespeare studies. And yet, here now, in 2004, is a Professor of English Literature who has devoted his careeer to defending the proposition that William Shaxper of Stratford was the author, who simply can't handle admitting that this evidence exists. This is emotional armouring of the worst kind; the rigidified reaction of denial in the face of a physical fact which flatly and completely undermines belief. If it wasn't so tragic it would be hilarious. Oxfordians: don't you laugh too loudly either. The Northumberland Manuscript is just as threatening to your doomed cause. If this document had belonged to the Earl, and had his name on it everywhere that Bacon's appears, of course it would be loudly trumpeted and triumphantly brandished as the long-sought-for "smoking gun". But as it proves the Baconian case, it is, like the rest of the evidence, simply ignored. I am beginning to understand that the so-called authorship question is not a matter of lack of evidence or communication or logic. It is an emotional and psychological phenomenon. The Stratfordian and Oxfordian positions support and maintain careers and other deep emotional investments, and thereby, like all false cults or worn-out paradigms, cannot be overcome by mere accumulation of undeniable evidence and clear thinking. Thank you Professor Nelson for your exemplary demonstration of the head-in-the-sand attitude of the orthodox. I guess you won't be posting the Northumberland Manuscript to your witness page, as you said you would. Instead your page (here) seen in the light of Northumberland stands as a simple testament to how wrong the professional expert can be, no matter how seemingly watertight the presentation might seem. It simply ignores evidence to the contrary. Admit Northumberland, and the entire orthodox position falls apart.

The Northumberland Manuscript is in fact the one and only document from the entire Elizabethan era on which the names of Bacon and Shakespeare both appear. It is a remarkable fact that nowhere, for example, in Bacon's voluminous writings or correspondence does he ever mention Shakespeare's name. James Spedding, Bacon's indefatigable nineteenth century biographer concludes from this that Bacon never met, or was even aware of, Shakespeare's existence. However, Spedding himself was unaware of the existence of the Northumberland Manuscript, which casts the problem in an entirely different light. It is impossible to conceive that Bacon could not have been aware of Shakespeare's existence. Here were the two outstanding geniuses of the day, both living and working in a city of 250,000 people during the same period of time. The plays of Shakespeare were the talk of the town, and performed frequently at court, where Bacon was a constant presence. Moreover, Ben Johnson was a concrete link between the two. Johnson was a close friend of Bacon's, even living in his house for five years. He was also intimately involved with the production of the First Folio, as his poems in tribute included in the prefatory material attest. Therefore, given the mutual connection of Ben Johnson, and given the existence of the Northumberland Manuscript which puts the two names together, it is obvious that there must be another reason for Bacon's silence in regard to Shakespeare's name, and that Spedding's contention that they were mutually unaware of each other is impossible to sustain. The only possible conclusion which takes into account these facts is that it was an intentional silence. And here now we step across the threshold of the solution to the mystery.

"Henry Paul, who informs the reader that Buchanan's Historia Scotica, and Hector Boece's Historia Scotorum were used as source material for Shakespeare's Macbeth, may not be aware that copies of both these books containing Bacon's inked annotations exist, and that these annotations show Bacon's special interest in the Macbeth theme. On a page of Buchanan containing the story of Macbeth, Bacon has written "Macbethi, Macbetho, and Macbethus Tyrannus, and Bancho rigiae caedis." Many of the words in the text are underlined. And in a copy of Boece dated 1575, Bacon has written the genealogy of the Scottish Kings descended from Banquo "to, and including James V, comprising seven kings." And in his Natural History, Bacon shows the same interest in strange parts of animals that Shakespeare must have had to write the witches' scenes."
- from this review of The Royal Play of Macbeth by Henry N Paul

Using a simple alphabet cipher based on the 24 letter Elizabethan alphabet, (as shown here), "Francis" adds to 67, "Bacon" to 33, and therefore "Francis Bacon" equates to 100. This cipher is found throughout the Shakespeare, Bacon and related works, as detailed extensively for example in the remarkable book "Secret Shakespearean Seals", on-line at the link in the sidebar.
It is remarkable that the word "Sonnets" also equates to 100. Given that "Shakespeare's" may be read as "Shakespeare is", this means that the title "Shakespeare's Sonnets" is equivalent by cipher substitution to "Shakespeare is Francis Bacon"!

Prof Alan H. Nelson of UC Berkeley has a website defending the orthodox authorship position here. On this page, he cites 8 contemporary Elizabethan documents as "witnesses" in order to demonstrate that William Shaxper the Stratford actor was known in his lifetime as the author of the Plays. He asserts that as at least some of the owners of these documents must have been in a position to know the truth, this proves that Shaxper wrote the works. I wrote to him to point out that he had overlooked a relevant contemporary document: the Northumberland Manuscript. On refreshing his memory by looking at it (here) he expressed the opinion in private email to me that this also proved his point, as above the names of the plays Richard II and III appear the words "William Shakespeare". Amazed by his myopia, I pointed out that, apart from the fact that the document belonged to Bacon and included both works by him and "Shakespeare", right next to these words are Francis Bacon's name, so that what it actually says of Richard II and III is that they are "By Mr Francis Bacon William Shakespeare". I asked him how he could explain the presence of Bacon's name in this provocative location if Bacon had nothing to do with the authorship of Shakespeare, as he claims. He replied that he had "no idea" why it should be there, but that he "didn't need to explain everything", even while he continues to assert on his website that Bacon had nothing to do with the Shakespeare works.

I invited him, if he truly believed that the Northumberland Manuscript could be cited as evidence for Shaxper's authorship, to post this as the ninth example to his witness page and be prepared to put on record publicly his privately expressed opininion that Northumberland supports the orthodox position. He wrote to me that he would do this as soon as he had some time. But as of this writing, months later, and despite a couple of friendly reminders, he has not yet done so. Why not write to him and ask why not?

"My labour as Editor of these Letters has now been brought to an end. What men may say about this book or write about it concerns them and not me. To those who are engaged in the business of erecting a national memorial to Bacon's Idol of the Theatre, William Shakespeare, I tender this unwelcome advice: - They had better lose no time. The ground beneath that Idol is heavily mined."

- Concluding paragraph of "Letters from the Dead to the Dead" by Oliver Lector, 1905

The Oxford theory is a control/chaos narrative designed to provide an additional layer of "blown cover as cover" on the Shakespeare project. Bacon, perceiving that three centuries would inevitably wear away the Stratford story, incorporated false clues to point to Edward DeVere's involvement, including some minor biographical details in plays like All's Well that Ends Well. This was in order to prolong to the appointed time the revelation of his authorship of the works. Thus the twentieth century saw the rise of the movement of those enthusiasts sufficiently informed to conclude that William Shaxper could not be the writer of the greatest poetry the world has seen, but unable to grasp the enormity of implication inherent in the true origin of the plays in the mind of the greatest genius of history, Francis Bacon. Already however, the Oxford movement begins to become weary, exhausted in it's never-ending search for a non-existent smoking gun and increasingly frustrated in it's failed attempts to devise a coherent narrative which can shoehorn the undeniable historical record into the Earl's inconveniently premature death. Thus the twenty-first century sees the rise of a new Baconianism, which will reach it's full flowering on the very day that the carefully hidden manuscripts and new plays are revealed to the world, ending all speculation, and bringing forth the incontrovertible evidence of Francis Bacon's authorship of the works of Shakespeare. Hasten that day.

Adam Weishaupt, dismissed from the Jesuit college at Ingolstadt, attracted the fiercer elements of European Rosicrucian Freemasonry ino a new secret cult in Bavaria. His "Illuminati", whose cover was eventually blown in order to convince public opinion that evil secret societies wre being diligently unmasked when in fact they were not, was another instance of "blown cover as cover".

- from Rulers of Evil, by F. Tupper Saussy

The beginning of all creatures is veiled, the middle is manifested, and the end again is imperceptible, O Bharata (Arjuna). Why, then, lament this truth?

The source of the dancing stream of lives is secretly hidden behind the mists of delusive ignorance; the end of the same silvery stream is also shrouded in mystery. Only the middle part is visible to humanity's myopic vision. Why, then, grieve over a matter no mortal can solve? ...

The stage of the earth is well set with food, air, water and fire;man has to study Nature to his best advantage and to act out his part according to the innate guidance of his intuition. The great Dramatist-Director of this mystery play of lives on the stage of the earth remains hidden somewhere! everywhere! directing the play of His children-actors through the suggesions of conscience and innate understanding. ...

I remember occasions in the past when, finding great joy in contacting God by meditation, my mind would suddenly be very curious. "Why not ask God for further information about Jesus, Krishna, Shakespeare?"

- from II:28 Commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita by Paramahansa Yogananda

At the bottom of his title-page to his 1620 'Great Instauration'
he included the Latin words from that quote:

Multi pertransibrant & augebitur scientia

'Many shall go forth and knowledge shall be increased'

But this has meanings on several different levels. The
ship is going forth in the paradigm of his intellectual globe
from the old world around the mediterranean to the New
World of the future.

In one sense he is sending his knowledge by the ship of
letters to future ages:

"If, therefore the invention of a ship was thought so noble,
which carries commodities from place to place and consociateth
the remotest regions in participation of their fruits, how much
more are letters to be valued, which, like ships, pass through
the vast ocean of time, and convey knowledge and inventions
to the remotest ages?"

In another sense this is the ship of the travellers go forth to the New Atlantis:

"Whether or not discoveries now made had been known to the ancients and the knowledge had been extinguished and rekindled with the changes of human fortune, is a matter of no great moment, just as it matters not all all whether the New World is the old Atlantis, or is now discovered for the first time."

In another sense the ship going forth tells us that it is the ship of discovery proceeding forth on his intellectual globe, and this ship is guided by his discovery device, The Intellectual Compass.

And it goes on. There are other levels and other meanings there.

- from a correspondent

Bacon reminds me of those lines in Francis Thompson's poem, "No Strange Land":

"Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces,
That miss the many-splendored thing.'

The 'Shakespeare' writings are endlessly evocative. Everywhere there are meadows of meaning that stretch out to a world beyond our understanding and beyond anything restricted to what we understand of human possibilities.

Look at just one example from one of these miracles of art. The name of the play is "A Midsummer Night's Dream". This tells us that everything that happens is:

1. A Dream
2. That takes place on one midsummer night

There is not only the dream element, there is also a time element. As soon as we begin reading the play this time element is underscored. The first line refers to 'nuptiall houre', the second to 'foure happy daies', the third to the moon which has always been associated with the element of time.

Moreover, the number four has an association with midsummer. Midsummer is the summer solstice, meaning to stand still, i.e., the length of the days stood still for three days and on the fourth they began to get longer again. The sun is also connected with time. Figuratively time stands still for three days and begins to move again on the fourth day as the days begin
to get longer.

There is another element of time connected to this. On the fourth day we do not find the day after the summer solstice, but instead - May 1. Time has been contracted from a summer night to an hour, dilated from a summer night to four days, and even reversed by almost two months, while dilated to almost two months.

What's going on?

This all phenomena associated with dreams, but phenomena which has been discovered since Bacon's time.

Remember the classical work of the French physican Alfred Maury In the 19th century? Maury studied a collection of more than 3,000 dreams, but one is especially famous. This is his 'guillotine' dream. This dream was conspicuous for its time contraction, or conversely, time dilation element. Dreams are notorious for their time distortion element.

Maury's dream was a long convoluted series of episodes about the Reign of Terror during the Revolution. He was thrown in prison for a long period of time. He witnessed some terrible scenes of murder, and finally he himself was summoned before the Tribunal. There he saw Robespierre, Marat, Fouquier-Tinville, and all the sorry heroes of those terrible days; he had to give an account of himself, and after all manner of incidents he was finally sentenced to death. In a cart, accompanied by an enormous crowd, he made the slow procession to the place of execution, where the guillotine awaited. He mounted the scaffold; he was force to knell. His head was fastened into place. The order of was given. The knife of the guillotine fell. He felt his head severed from his trunk, and suddenly awoke, only to find that the head-board of the bed had fallen, and had struck his neck where the knife of the guillotine would have fallen.

The point was that the head-board striking his neck was the external stimuli that caused the dream, but it would have awakened him instantly so that the entire convoluted dream would have had to take place in that one fraction of a second.

So I would have to think that Bacon (who always seems to know everything)intentionaly constructed this element into the play, and there are many, many such examples. What people find in the plays is limited only by their own limitations, never by any limitations in the author.

- from a correspondent

Believing that I was born for the service of mankind, and regarding the care of the commonwealth as a kind of common property which like the air and the water belongs to everybody, I set myself to consider in what way mankind might be best served, and what service I was myself best fitted by nature to perform.

Now among all the benefits that could be conferred upon mankind, I found none so great as the discovery of new arts, endowments, and commodities for the bettering of man's life. For I saw that among the rude people in the primitive times the authors of rude inventions and discoveries were consecrated and numbered among the Gods. And it was plain that the goodeffects wrought by founders of cities, lawgivers, fathers of the people, extirpers of tyrants, and heroes of that class, extend but over narrow spaces and last but for short times; whereas the work of the Inventor, though a thing of less pomp and shew, is felt everywhere and lasts for ever. But above all, if a man could succeed, not in striking out some particular invention, however useful, but in kindling a light in nature a light which should in its very rising touch and illuminate all the border regions that confine upon the circle of our present knowledge; and so spreading further and further should presently disclose and bring into sight all that is most hidden and secret in the world,that man (I thought) would be the benefactor indeed of the human race,the propagator of man's empire over the universe, the champion of liberty, the conqueror and subduer of necessities.

- from: On the Interpretation of Nature

"The Celtic peoples were pagans like the Romans worshipping many Gods. Celtic Gods and Roman Gods seemed to coexist together; a Celtic-Romano Temple was excavated south of the Roman Theatre, and the remains of a Triangular Temple lie unseen in Verulamium Park.

Christianity had one God, and it had become a threat to the Roman Empire, because the followers refused to acknowledge the Emperor as divine, the consequence being - it was not tolerated, which only seemed to accelerate its growth! In Britain as elesewhere the faith was spreading, and in about the year AD209 the story and legend of St Alban begins. It is said that Alban was an affluent Roman citizen, possibly an army officer, and that during a period when Christians were being persecuted, he gave shelter to a man who has been called Amphibalus. While he stayed with him, Alban was converted to Christianity. Amphibulas got away and Alban was arrested: after a prolonged trial, during which he refused to give up his faith, he was beheaded - a privilege only allowed to Roman citizens. It is also possible that the execution took place on the hill close to where the Abbey was eventually built."

- from The St Albans Mapguide

The Mapguide goes on to suggest that the trial of St Alban actually took place in the Roman theatre which even to this day stands within the gates of the Gorhambury estate. So Francis Bacon, growing up, would have played in this very theatre, the site of St Alban's trial. Later when Bacon was made a Viscount, he chose the name Viscount St Alban. Note that he did not select the plural version, St Albans, after the town, which would have been consistent with the usual protocol to select a place-name to adorn the title, but after the man, St Alban. Thus Francis explicitly identified himself with the saint.

This becomes even more curious when one reads in the Royal Masonic Cyclopedia that the date of St Alban's martyrdom is given there as 287AD. This date is not historical, but symbolic, as may be discerned by examination of the remarkable book Secret Shakespearean Seals, available on-line at the sidebar link.

I send you also a memorial of Queen Elizabeth......Of this, when you were here, I shewed you some model, though at that time me thought you were more willing to hear Julius Caesar that Queen Elizabeth commended. But this which I send is more full and hath more of the narrative. -- Letter to Tobie Matthew who was being sent a revised draft of the play 1609

For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of truth; as having a Mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the Resemblances of Things (which is the chief point) and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their Subtler Differences; as being gifted by Nature with Desire to seek, patience to Doubt, fondness to Meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of Imposture. So I thought my Nature had a kind of familiarity and Relationship with Truth. On the Interpretation of Nature 1603-4

About the same time I remember an answer of mine in a matter which had some affinity with my Lord's cause, which though it grew from me, went after about in other's names. For her Majesty being mightily incensed with that book which was dedicated to my Lord of Essex, being a story of the first year of King Henry the fourth, thinking it a seditious prelude to put into the people's heads boldness and faction, said she had good opinion that there was treason in it and asked me if I could not find any places in it that might be drawn within the case of treason: whereto I answered : for treason surely if found none, but for felony (plagiarism) very many. ---Apologie in Certaine Imputations concerning the Late Earle of Essex (found in The Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon, Spedding)

Nevertheless it is important to understand how the present is like a seer with two faces, one looking toward the future, and the other towards the past. Accordingly I have decided to prepare for your instruction tables of both ages, containing not only the past course and progress of science, but also anticipation of things to come. The nature of these tables you could not conjecture before you see them. A genuine anticipation of them is beyond your scope, nor would you be aware of the lack of it unless it was put in your hands. It is a compliment reserved to some of the choicer spirits among you whom I hope to win thereby. But generally speaking science is to be sought from the light of nature, not from the darkness of antiquity.- from the "Masculine Birth of Time"

An Open Letter to Roland Emmerich:

It's reported that you are planning to make a film on Oxford as Shakespeare. I am wondering if you are planning to present this as real history. If so, I would welcome the opportunity to share with you the evidence which shows that there is simply no consistent scenario of Edward deVere's life which can account for the Shakespeare works. All Oxfordian attempts to make their man fit the case for the Bard must overlook crucial evidence. Whichever version of the Oxfordian fantasy then, for (sadly) that is what it is, becomes the narrative for your film, it will inevitably only serve to expose the fatal flaws in the case for his authorship. There is a simple reason for this, and no mystery: Oxford didn't write the plays, or the sonnets, not so much as a word. Francis Bacon is the true author and genius behind the Shakespeare works. The evidence is abundant and overwhelming: Promus, Northumberland,the gap in the Histories exactly filled by Bacon's Henry VII, letters, documents, signatures, parallels. Note in particular that evidence for Bacon's authorship dates from throughout the years of Shakespeare's career; the Promus notebook for example from 1595-6, so there is no question of Bacon somehow taking over the plays after Oxford's death, as many Oxfordians seem to believe. We would urge you therefore, before presenting the Oxford case to the world as true history, to review the evidence, for example at www.sirbacon.org, for Bacon's authorship. It might be that as a result you end up making an entirely different film than the one you have set out to create.

Bacon is Shakespeare: now that would make a great film. I have this idea for the opening scene: Francis, as a boy, playing in the ancient Roman Theatre on the grounds of Gorhambury where he grew up. This is the very same place where the trial of St Alban, the first Christian martyr on British soil, took place, whose name Bacon was to take when he became Viscount St Alban late in his life. The film opens with the boy playing at being an actor on the ancient stage, and then flashes back and forward in time, forward decades to the stage at the Globe with a production of Twelfth Nightin full swing, back more than a millennia in time to St Alban at his trial and forward to Viscount St Alban after his fall working at the First Folio. Then the credits. Then it opens proper with one of Queen Elizabeth's private visits to Gorhambury with all her entourage, as she goes to visit and take her special interest in Francis, her secret son. One month later young Francis is packed off to Cambridge. Etc Etc. Let's do lunch.

Ben Johnson (speaking of Francis Bacon)

My conceit of his person was never increased toward him, by his place, or honours. But I have, and doe reverence him for his greatness, that was only proper to himselfe, in that hee seem'd to mee ever, by his worke, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had beene in many Ages. In his adversity I ever prayed, that God would give him strength: for Greatness hee could not want.

...

One, though hee be excellent, and the chiefe, is not to bee imitated alone. For no Imitator, ever grew up to his Author; likeness is always on this side Truth; Yet there hapn'd, in my time, one noble Speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language (where hee could spare, or passe a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more presly, more weightily, or suffer'd lesse emptinesse, lesse idleness, in what hee utter'd. No member of his speech, but consisted of the owne graces: His hearers could not cough, or looke aside from him, without losse. Hee commanded where hee spoke, and had his judges angry, and pleased at his devotion. No man had the affections more in his power. The feare of every man that heard him, was, lest hee should make an end.

...

But his learned, and able (though unfortunate) Successor (i.e.Bacon) is he, who hath fill'd up all numbers; and perform'd that in our tongue, which may be compar'd, or preferr'd, either to insolent Greece, or haughty Romy. In short, within his view, and about his times, were all the wite borne, that could honour a language, or helpe study. Now things daily fall: wits grow downe-ward, and Eloquence growes back-ward: So that hee may be nam'd, and stand as the marke and acme of our language.

For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself. They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
- from The Advancement of Learning

Generally speaking, Francis Bacon's biographers have never stressed the important fact that Francis Bacon was directly connected with the theatrical world of his early days at Gray's Inn, that he wrote Dramatic Plays and Shows that were acted before the Queen and composed Sonnets. Yet it is an open fact of the deepest significance. Parker Woodward in Tudor Problems suggests that Francis Bacon supplied all the Plays that were prepared and performed at Gray's Inn from 1583 for the entertainment of the Queen. It is highly probable. What we are definitely certain about is this: That Francis did prepare certain Plays that were performed before the Queen. Not only so, but it was well-known in Court Circles even in the time of James that Francis Bacon was a Past Master in the art of stage management and the creation of plays.

On 14th February, 1612-13, the Princess Elizabeth married the Count Palatine. There were the usual rejoicings which lasted several days. Chamberlain, a contemporary, wrote:

"On Tuesday, 18th February, it came to Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple's turn to come with their Masque, whereof Sir Francis Bacon was the chief contriver."

- from Francis Bacon's Personal Life-story by Alfred Dodd

"Nor should we neglect to mention the prophecy of Daniel, of the last days of the world, "Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased," thus plainly hinting and suggesting that fate (which is Providence) would cause the complete circuit of the globe (now accomplished, or at least going forward by means of so many distant voyages), and the increase of learning to happen at the same epoch."
Novum Organon

Yesterday I was walking down Collins St, Melbourne, looking up at the tops of the buildings. To my surprise, I suddenly noticed that there was a statue of Pallas Athena prominently displayed on one, complete with helmet and spear, making it instantly recognisable. The building turned out to be The Athenaeum, prominent Melbourne theatre and landmark. Later that day I visitted one of my favourite Melbourne second-hand bookshops, and found pure gold: Letters from the Dead to the Dead, by "Oliver Lector".

One word: axle-tree.

Shakespeare, Bacon and Christopher Marlowe all use it to signify the cosmic world-axis, as follows:

From "Troilus and Cressida":

ULYSSES:And thou most reverend for thy stretch'd-out life
I give to both your speeches, which were such
As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece
Should hold up high in brass, and such again
As venerable Nestor, hatch'd in silver,
Should with a bond of air, strong as the axle-tree
On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears
To his experienced tongue, yet let it please both,
Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak.

From a letter of Francis Bacon to the Earl of Essex:

I desire your Lordship also to think that though I confess I love some things much better than I love your Lordship, as the Queen's service, her quiet and contentment, her honour, her favour, the good of my country, and the like, yet I love few persons better than yourself, both for gratitude's sake, and for your own virtues, which cannot hurt but by accident or abuse. Of which my good affection I was ever and am ready to yield testimony by any good offices but with such reservations as yourself cannot but allow for as I was ever sorry that your Lordship should fly with waxen wings, doubting Icarus' fortune, so for the growing up of your own feathers, specially ostrich's, or any other save of a bird of prey, no man shall be more glad. And this is the axletree whereupon I have turned 'and shall turn; which to signify to you, though I think you are of yourself persuaded as much, is the cause of my writing; and so I commend your Lordship to God's goodness. From Gray's Inn, this 20th day of July, 1600.

Your Lordship's most humbly,

FR. BACON.

From The tragical History of Doctor Faustus, attributed to Christopher Marlowe:

MEPHOSTOPHILIS As are the elements, such are the heavens,
Even from the moon unto the empyrial orb,
Mutually folded in each other's spheres,
And jointly move upon one axle-tree,
Whose terminate is termed the world's wide pole.

Spedding, who rejected to the end of his life the identity of Bacon and Shakespeare, nevertheless on several occasions himself notes parallels between the works, such as here:

"The scene in the 'Winter's Tale;' where Perdita presents the guests with flowers suited to their ages, has some expressions which, if this Essay had been contained in the earlier edition, would have made me suspect that Shakespeare had been reading it. "

He cannot bring himself to consider the reverse possibility: that Bacon heard the lines at a Shakespeare play, and later incorporated them into his Essay, because that would be incompatible with the conclusion he reaches elsewhere, namely that Bacon was not aware of Shakespeare or his writings. He comes to this conclusion from the fact that nowhere in either's work is the other mentioned.

But, how then, if Bacon was unaware of Shakespeare, could he have quoted him? Spedding cannot bring himself to contemplate this small problem.

Clearly, if there are parallels between Winters Tale and the Essays, and Shakespeare couldnt have read the Essays because they hadnt been published yet, and Bacon couldnt have seen the play because he lived his entire life oblivious to Shakespeares existence, then, there is only one possibility left which can explain the situation: Bacon and Shakespeare were the same man.

This would explain how a Shakespeare play came to be performed at Gray's Inn as part of the 1594 Christmas Entertainment which was directed, written and staged by Francis Bacon. It must have put Spedding into a mental pretzel to pen the following passage and not conclude the obvious:

"The Ambassador and his train retired in discontent; and when the tumult partly subsided they were obliged (in default of those "very good inventions and conceipts " which had been intended) to content themselves with ordinary dancing and revelling; and when that was over, with " a Comedy of Errors (like to Plautus his Menechmus)," which "was played by the players." This performance seems to have been regarded as the crowning disgrace of this unfortunate Grand Night; a fact, by the way, indicating (if it were Shakespeare's play, as I suppose it was) either rich times or poor tastes; for the historian proceeds, " so that night was begun, and continued to the end, in nothing but confusion and errors; whereupon it was ever afterwards called the Night of Errors.""

"His imagination was fruitful and vivid; a temperament of the most delicate sensibility, so excitable as to be affected by the slightest alterations of the atmosphere."--Montagu.

"He belongs to the realm of the imagination, of eloquence, of jurisprudence, of ethics, of metaphysics; his writings have the gravity of prose, with the fervor and vividness of poetry."--Prof. Welsh.

"He possessed at once all those extraordinary talents which were divided amongst the greatest authors of antiquity. He had the sound, distinct, comprehensive knowledge of Aristotle, with all the beautiful lights, graces, and embellishments of Cicero. One does not know which to admire most in his writings, the strength of reason, force of style, or brightness of imagination."--Addison.

Let's straighten something out. Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was not reponsible for the works of William Shakespeare. He didn't write so much as a word of the Bard. The movement which has emerged to put forward his candidacy for the authorship is an intellectual cult. it's full of well meaning folk with just enough perspicacity to realise that something is very wrong with the orthodox position, but not enough clear-sightedness to see that the Oxford theory is utterly untenable. His dates are, for a start, all wrong. It's not just a question of his dying too early to have written many of the plays; the entire trajectory of the appearance of the Elizabethan theatre is utterly incongruent with his biography. Macbeth was written after the Gunpowder plot of 1605; the Tempest after the Strachey letter of 1609 and Henry VIII after Bacon's fall from grace in 1621. All objections to the contrary from Oxfordians are wishful sloppy thinking. Everything about the Oxford case crumbles to the touch: the 1000 pound annual bequest given to the Earl by the Queen is clearly stated as being for the relief of his estate after he blew the family fortune; the coat of arms allegedly used by DeVere with the "shaken spear" was actually not used by his family during his lifetime, and in any case features a broken spear, not shaken; everything is twisted, stretched, papered-over. There are some incidents from the Earl's life in the plays; they are biography, not autobiography. On this small misunderstanding, what edifices of error have been built. The entire debate is framed as William from Stratford against DeVere, and both sides wonder why they are unable to deliver the knock-out blow. Meanwhile, both the orthodox and the oxfordian resolutely refuse to perform due diligence on the case for Bacon. All assume that someone, somewhere has provided the definitive case against Bacon as Shakespeare. In fact, no one has. John Michell, sadly, in his popular book Who Wrote Shakespeare? dismisses Bacons candidacy on the basis that he never visitted Italy. In fact, contemporary documentary evidence attests to at least two trips there made by Francis Bacon.

Bacon is Shakespeare. The evidence is overwhelming: Northumberland. Promus. Parallels. Testimony of contemporaries. There is no counter-argument which stands up to scrutiny. Thus the orthodox and the oxfordians simply ignore the Baconians, as best they can. Meanwhile, the Oxfordians continue to look for the "smoking gun", which they freely admit is yet to be found. The reason it has not been found is that it does not exist; there is no smoking gun because Oxford did not write the Works; no, not even so much as a single word.

Bacon: "Mr Bettenham, reader of Gray's Inn, used to say that riches were like muck; when it lay upon a heap, it gave but a stench and ill odour; but when it was spread upon the ground, then it was the cause of much fruit." (Works vii p160)

Nashe: "As the hog is still grunting, digging and rooting in the muck, so is the usurer still turning, digging and rooting in the muck of this world" (Vol. iv p150)

Shakespeare: "The common muck of the world" (money) Coriolanus ii 2

- from The Bacon Shakespeare Anatomy by W.S. Melsome (1945)

"Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in repressing the inconveniences which grow from man to man, much inferior to the former, of relieving the necessities which arise from nature; which merit was lively set forth by ancients in that feigned relation of Orpheus' theatre, where all beasts and birds assembled; and forgetting their several appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel, stood all sociably together listening unto the airs and accords of the harp; the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his own nature: wherein is aptly described the nature and condition of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed desires, of profit, of lust, of revenge; which as long as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and peace mantained; but if these instruments be silent, or that sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and confusion."
from The Advancement of Learning

"Wherefore to conclude this part, let it be observed, that there be two principal duties and services, besides ornament and illustration, which philosophy and human learning do perform to faith and religion. The one, because they are an effectual inducement to the exaltation of the glory of God. For as the Psalms and other scriptures do often invite us to consider and magnify the great and wonderful works of God, so if we should rest only in the contemplation of the exterior of them as they first offer themselves to our senses, we should do a like injury unto the majesty of God, as if we should judge or construe of the store of some excellent jeweller, by that only which is set out the street in his shop. The other, because they minister a singular help and preservative against unbelief and error. For our Saviour saith, 'You err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God'; laying before us two books or volumes to study, if we will be secured from error; first the scriptures, revealing the will of God, and then the creatures expressing his power; whereof the latter is a key unto the former: not only opening our understanding to conceive the true sense of the scriptures, by the general notions of reason and rules of speech; but chiefly opening our belief, in drawing us into a due meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is chiefly signed and engraven upon his works. Thus much therefore for divine testimony and evidence concerning the true dignity and value of learning."
From The Advancement of Learning

The difficulty with the case of Francis Bacon as Shakespeare is not so much in establishing that it is true. That part is relatively straightforward: the Northumberland manuscript, the Promus notebook, Ben Jonson's testimony, the Hall/Marston satires, the parallels between Bacons work and Shakespeares, the evidence from contemporary letters, his involvement in theatre at Gray's Inn and elsewhere, the tributes paid to him afer death in the Manes Verulamium, the evidence from with the Plays themselves, including plotlines, characters and signatures. No, this is not the problem. The problem is knowing when to stop. For example, by equally compelling evidence he can just as readily be shown to be the author of Don Quixote, writing under the mask of Miguel Cervantes. He was also Edmund Spenser. And Robert Greene and George Peele. Christopher Marlowe. Nashe. Montaigne. Sir Philip Sidney. Not to mention, he was also Francis Bacon, himself, let us not forget.

In 1867, twenty-two old manuscript sheets, folded in half for binding and enclosed by another sheet to provide a cover was discovered in the London house of the Duke of Northumberland. It was easily determined that the manuscript has belonged to Francis Bacon since most of the enclosed writings were his, and the cover listed a number of his writings. However, the cover also listed writings published under the name of William Shakespeare, as well as phrases scrawled where his name was mingled with the name of William Shakespeare:

By mr ffrauncis Bacon
Essaies by the same author
William Shakespeare
Rychard the second
Rychard the third
Asmund and Cornelia
Ille of dogs frmnt
by Thomas Nashe
William Shakespeare

"Good to be mery and wise."

Bacon's Promus Notebook, Folio 92

"For of the knowledges which contemplate the works of Nature, the holy Philosopher hath said expressly; that the glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the King is to find it out: as if the Divine Nature, according to the innocent and sweet play of children, which hide themselves to the end they may be found; took delight to hide his works, to the end they might be found out; and of his indulgence and goodness to mankind, had chosen the Soule of man to be his play-fellow in this game."

Nay, stage-playing has been regarded even by wise men and great philosophers as a kind of Plectrum of the Soul. And it is certainly right, and at the same time one of the great secrets of nature, that the minds of men when many are assembled together are much more open to influence and impression than when they are alone.

In the Advancement of Learning, Bacon writes:

"Another diversity of method there is [he is speaking of the different methods of communicating and transmitting knowledge] which hath some affinity with the former, used in some cases by the discretion of the ancients, but disgraced since by the impostures of many vain persons, who have made it as a false light for their counterfeit merchandises; and that is enigmatical and disclosed. The pretence whereof [that is, of the enigmatical method] is to remove the vulgar capacities from being admitted to the secrets of knowledge, and to reserve them to selected auditors, or wits of such sharpness as can pierce the veil."

From Bacon, Shakespeare and the Rosicrucians. W.F.C. Wigston

In "An Unrecorded Elizabethan Performance of Titus Andronicus" (Shakespeare Review 14, 1961), Gustav Ungerer finds the evidence for the "only private performance [of a Shakespeare play] that is known to us to have taken place in Elizabethan times". Not only that, it is "also the sole record to prove that the tragedy was put on in the provinces as well as in London". The performance took place in January 1596, as part of the Christmas Festivities held in "grand scale" at Burley-on-the-Hill, estate of Sir John Harington.

The evidence is contained in a letter written to Anthony Bacon, found amongst his papers at Lambeth Palace Library. It was written by one Jacques Petit, a servant of Bacon's on secondment to Harington's household as tutor to his son, and briefly mentions a performance of the play by a professional company of actors from London, most likely the Chamberlain's Men. This would have involved a period of 9 days absence from London, at the height of the theatrical season, which would have been "surprisingly inconsistent with known Elizabethan practice", according to Ungerer.

Harington's translation of Orlando Furioso was published in 1591 with Francis Bacon's AA device appearing no less than 96 times in the book.

There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man's self: the first, closeness, reservation and secrecy; when a man leaveth himself without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is; the second, dissimulation in the negative; when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that he is not what he is; and the third, simulation in the affirmative; when a man industriously and expressly feigns and pretends to be that he is not.

Antisthenes being asked of one, what learning was most necessary for man's life? Answered, 'To unlearn that which is nought."