A Comprehensive
review of Alan Nelson's Monstrous Adversary 2003
This review is copyright © 2003 by Robert Brazil
Review of Part
III - Emancipation
Chapter 15 - Majority
and Marriage
68 - EO is mentioned in a Catholic memo as a "friend," and
accused in another as a member of the Ridolphi plot. N gives scant references
and moves on.
Regarding Oxford
and the Ridolphi plot: - by Barboura Flues
Alice Lyle Scoufos book Shakespeare's Typological Satire
mentions that Oxford's name appears in a letter from the Duke
of Norfolk to Pope Pius V (Calendar of State Papers, Rome, 1558-1571),
p. 383). Some 40 Englishmen are cited as adherents to Mary Stuart,
including the Earls of Arundel, Oxford, Northumberland, Westmoreland,
Shrewsubry, Derby, Pembroke, and Southampton, Viscount Montague,
and Lord Cobham.
If memory serves me right, most of these gentlemen were placed
under arrest. Pembroke and Oxford were married off to good Protestant
ladies. Cobham, who had had something to do with the interchange
of letters, stayed for a time at the home of his best friend
Lord Burghley. It was apparently one of his messengers who was
intercepted at Gad's Hill with the letter that exposed the plot.
Scoufos, in discussing throughout the book, involves Oxford
again and again with the group of authors unequivocally opposed
to the Brooke family (of Lord Cobham). These authors include
Thomas Nashe, Robert Greene and John Lyly. She cites as the
ultimate expression of this anti-Brooke animus the Henry IV
and V plays (in the person of Falstaff, and making fun of the
Protestant martyrdom of Sir John Oldcastle and of the disgraceful
military career of Thomas Brooke, brother of Lord Cobham, who
was court-martialled for practices very similar to those of
Falstaff in his enlistment of soldiers).
Although Scoufos, as I said, shows a clear reason for Oxford's
aversion to the Brooke family, and brings in his name several
times, she makes no conjectures about Shakespeare authorship.
Brooke (Lord Cobham) apparently was either a real bumbler, or
else a Burghley agent provocateur. He was either a brother or
uncle of Arthur Brooke, presumed author of the poem Romeus
and Juliet.
He and Oxford would possibly have been staying with Burghley
during the time immediately following Ridolphi when Cobham was
staying with Burghley, who seems in some way to have assumed
the role of his protector.
I have many times urged all Oxfordians to get a copy of this
book. Wouldn't be surprised if Nelson had read it and spotted
the Oxford reference regarding the Ridolphi plot, without following
up on provocative material relating to the Shakespeare plays
and the anti-Cobham coalition of authors.
Barboura Flues
|
April 2, 1571, EO takes
his adult place in the procession at the opening of Parliament, 10 days
ahead of his 21 birthday. (As I have written elsewhere, the DNB gives
Oxford's birthday as April 2, and it probably stems from this event's
near coincidental date)
69 - N mentions that Cecil,
now Lord Burghley was prominent in the assembly. He says nothing (here)
about how Cecil happened to get ennobled, or why, etc.
N does some math and calculates
that Oxford attended 10 of the 50 sessions of that Parliament. On April
10 Oxford was appointed to a committee "touching matters of religion."
Would he really be sitting on such a panel if it were known or suspected
that he was man in league with both the Pope and the Devil? Nelson does
not explain. Perhaps his expertise is why they needed him.
EO turns 21, gets 10 garter
votes, but never gets that close again. Huge Tournament. Oxford was
very prominent. He gets a gift from Queen Elizabeth of a "tablet
of diamonds". (This was like a special little abacus for keeping
score at the tilts) There is a famous direct connection here to Sonnet
122:
Thy gift, thy tables,
are within my brain
Full charactered with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain
Beyond all date even to eternity.
Or at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist,
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be missed:
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score,
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more:
To keep an adjunct to remember thee
Were to import forgetfulness in me.
Nelson doesn't seem to know
the nature of the gift, and gives a picture of a large tilt scoring
sheet (like a Bowling score-sheet almost), which he implies is what
the gift was.
I just noticed for the first
time that in the glossy pictures section Nelson gives a third of a page
to a nasty cartoon of satan, to balance out a picture of George Howard
and the tilting score card. I think he is perhaps aiming at a few local
sales in Berkeley?
N makes a big deal of Oxford
not actually winning at this tournament - having being given a "handicap,"
like in golf, because he was new to the game .... but this is the testimony
of one person. Nelson can't ever say - the kid did a good job. And the
witness he uses who says Oxford was 'almost as good as the others' also
says that for "life and agility" no one was better than EO.
Nelson does not deal with
Oxford's financial coming of age in any particular detail at all. He
says that Oxford was entitled to 666 pounds (and some change) but had
to wait a year to collect on anything. [ £666 13s 4d is the approximate
valuation of 1,000 marks (two-thirds)]
Here's a surprise - Nelson
sums up Oxford's economic fate in a way I didn't expect. He says that
because of the obligations he *already* owed to Burghley and the Queen,
[at age 21] his money was tied up in the court of wards and Oxford would
never get free of bondage, debt or control by Burghley and the Crown.
Yet we still hear that Oxford wasted his *entire* estate when he never
really had his full estate to begin with.
N mentions that a financial
syndicate offered EO to buy him out completely of the whole Oxford enchilada
for £12,000 pounds per annum. Oxford refused, and Nelson sums
up that by handling the land sales himself, EO was able to live rather
luxuriously for 15 years by selling off parcels of land - until he ran
out.
June 1571: EO stages a huge
affair for the French ambassador.
71 - Queen E socks Oxford
with a huge bill: 3000 pounds for his wardship and 4000 pounds for suing
his livery. Oxford couldn't pay and does a "double down" bet
[just like in poker or blackjack] - he signs a chit which says he will
pay the 7K by a certain date or it becomes 14K.
N then says that should
he fail, Oxford would owe the principle too, owing 21K pounds.
Nasty casino rules!
71 - N introduces EO's marriage
to Anne as "he put his head straight back in a noose." (i.e.
no freedom from the total control of Burghley)
July 28 - the letter from St. John to Rutland that says "the Earl
of Oxenforde hath gotten him a wife - or at least a wife hath caught
him" But they weren't married yet ... just betrothed
Burghley notes the betrothal in retrospect on August 3. He notes the
Queen approved it and so did Norfolk, still imprisoned at Howard house.
(covering all bases!) Burghley writes to Rutland who was disappointed
that Anne didn't marry Philip Sidney. Burghley says, sure Oxford is
a little reckless but "whereof I take comfort in his wit and knowledge."
That was the one thing they all agreed on: WIT & KNOWLEDGE
[This Sidney triangle is
marvelously sent up in Merry Wives of Windsor - if anyone has not read
my analysis of that play you can find it on the Shakespeare Fellowship
site]
73 - waiting to get married,
Oxford joins the Queen's progress through Hertfordshire (this time with
a T) and Essex (i.e. his own familiar ground) Oxford is given gloves
by the Queen. The procession by September visits Theobalds and then
Kenilworth with the Earl of Leicester and Warwick.
Now N gives a document that
says Oxford's wardship bill was 2000 pounds payable in 10 yearly installments
through 1581 ... and the fine for livery was 1,257 pounds. These are
very different numbers.
Ah, N states that the former
7K bill had been reduced to 3,257. Does not explain the negotiation
or reasons. [citation is Cecil Papers xiii p 107]
Burghley agrees to offer 3,000 in dowry which Stone claimed was a "record
sum"
We have the names of two of Oxford's men from Walsingham's diary. William
Faunt and John Clopton (alias Clapton alias Wooton)
74-75 - the wedding probably
dates Sunday Dec 16, 1571 at Court at Whitehall. Also Edward Somerset
marries Elizabeth Hastings, the girl Oxford passed over. The marriage
was recorded by Giles Fletcher in Latin. N uses Ward's translation .
76 - De Spes the Spanish
Ambassador writes to the King of Spain that the Catholic church had
lost two families by the weddings.
N says that Anne and Edward Oxenforde "evidently" took up
residence at the Savoy across the Strand from Burghley house. (Don't
know why he says evidently which in this case means the evidence is
vague?)
The Savoy was a hospital and garden and apparently the Oxfords had an
apartment upstairs.
N suggests the couple honeymooned at Castle Hedingham and Wivenhoe.
This is through the inference of a 1590 letter from Henry Lok to Burghley
that a debt remained unpaid to him that dated all the way back to when
Oxford and company, "His Lordships and his Ladies ... first being
at Owldfoord and Hiningam Park."
(N does not complain about Lok's spelling, which is more peculiar than
Oxford's)
N describes the couple as a "virgin only just 15" and a 21
year old "buck" with experience "both worldly and otherworldly."
Chapter 16 - Country
Muses
77-79 N introduces EO's
first overt literary production - Cardanus Comfort, with poem
and letter from EO - N, of course, downplays this book's significance.
He calls Oxford's rhetorical technique "ad nauseam" ... yet the same
old-style reiteration appears in Shakespeare. [And Cardanus is
the very book Hamlet is holding and musing about during "to be or not
to be."] I consider Cardanus one of the best and clearest pieces of
evidence that links Oxford to Hamlet and Shakespeare. [The incident
with Tyrell's ghost adds corroborative color, but does not rise to the
same level of *evidence* as Cardanus, because one is the reported
recollection of a boast of a dubious decade-old "event", and the other
is a real physical book with Oxford's name on the cover that can be
examined first-hand]
Chapter 17 - Country
Matters
Jan 14, 1572 - George Golding,
younger brother of Arthur Golding, takes over as "auditor for Oxford's
estates"
The poem "Gascoigne's Voyage unto Holland," by George Gascoigne,
places that poet-soldier on a boat in March 1572 with William Herle,
Rowland York, and Ned Denny. Because Herle was implicated in yet another
plot to free the Duke of Norfolk, N casts suspicions on the lot of them
- both York and Denny were already, or would shortly be Oxford's servants.
According to Dr. Pearson, Rowland Yorke was a member of Oxford's entourage,
but was never one of his paid servants. Yorke, who was a dashing rogue,
outlaw, and dangerous fencer was Oxford's friend, but not in his direct
employ.
Now here's an odd digression {by me, not N)
In Ruth Miller's Oxfordian Vistas, Vol. II page 82 she gives
the details of Barrell's work that proposed that Denny was Denny the
Frenchman, a.k.a. Capt. Dennys, a.k.a. John Soowthern. Dennys or Dennis
was known to be a long time close servant to Oxford. Soowthern is described
as a long retained servant. But there is no Soowthern, it's just a penname
for the single book: Pandora. I think Dennys kept changing his name
to avoid arrest or something.
If it can be demonstrated that Barrell was right, then we have ANOTHER
example of Nelson giving a phantom DOUBLE-INDEX LISTING, one entry for
a phantom - *this time a pen-name.* This is even more flagrantly useful,
as it is a direct parallel of Meres - a double listing due to an unrecognized
pen-name.
In the same article given in Miller, the Gads Hill incident is discussed
and the names involved are: Oxford's Men: Dayne Wilkins, John Hannam,
Denny the Frenchman. The messengers they accosted were William Faunt
and John Wotton ... HEY - those are the guys Nelson says were Oxford's
men .. Looking ahead to Nelson's account he gives the same names. How
can these guys be both Oxford's men and Burghley's ? [They transferred
allegience - more on this in a later]
80 - N introduces the letter of John Lee to Burghley, March 18 1572,
partly in cipher, that suggests that it was already a widely heard rumor
that Oxford was boycotting his wife Anne, to put pressure on Burghley
to have Norfolk freed. - In separate research I have discovered that
this accusation is one of the key things that gave Oxford a bad reputation
in later centuries - Isaac Disraeli and later his son Benjamin dredged
this up for spin. EO was a bad husband, a bad son, a bad citizen ...
bad bad bad ...
N is honest enough to include Lee's statement that he himself did not
believe the rumor!
Ah, but then N counter thrusts with a cryptic note by Burghley that
N believes indicates that the hitman/bouncer Rowland Yorke barred Anne
from entering her husband's bedroom at Wyvenhoe.
Again if true, so what?
Who among us *hasn't* hired an armed guard to keep our wives away at
one time or another? :^) And in Loves Labors Lost the men renounce love
and lust in an effort to get some work done. (Oh, I see that Nelson
/ Burghley then claim that Oxford wasn't doing work but was getting
chambermaids pregnant!) Oh well ... Yet an upcoming chapter is called
"Sodomite." Not sure how it all reconciles. But applying Nicole's
observation that experience precedes creative expression, at least our
boy is showing that he had, in his one life, the experiences of ALL
the Shakespeare protagonists, emotional and sexual.
N reproduces Dugdale's 18th century hyped up version of the Lee story
... ah, this is probably the source Disraeli used.
Parliament 1572 - N calculates EO attended 11 or of 35 sessions, (hey,
his percentage went up) and shortly thereafter EO is named to the Mary
Queen of Scots commission.
May 30, 1572 - Oxford finally issued "entrance" into his lands
and estates.
Oxford and Leicester are appointed to receive Montmorency on his official
State visit.
Aug 18 - the huge shindig at Warwick castle where Oxford staged spectacular
pyrotechnic battle reenactments.
It would seem, in the abbreviated way N describes this period, that
Oxford was at the height of respectability and political acceptance
- getting along with everybody (except Anne) (This is the exact same
time period that has been examined so closely by those who believe Oxford
had some sort of love affair with the Queen.)
September - EO's famous letter on the Bartholomew day massacre. The
import of this, and EO's decades-long connection to Henri Navarre ,
and Loves Labors Lost, have been discussed in this group at length.
More proof we are dealing with the Shakespeare author.
Oxford letter also shows he has hired a surveyor (N. thinks it is Israel
Amyce) and is beginning the process of harvesting woods, and "disposing
of lands by lease or copyhold."
Dr. Pearson has better information
about this. The surveyor was really William Humberstone, the Crown surveyor.
The trees were inventoried and graded for potential sale, based on many
factors including ease of removal. The English Navy and commercial shipbuilders
were always paying cash for fully-grown oaks, and land owners could
always raise quick funds by a selective harvest. Nelson is also apparently
incorrect in his understanding of concepts such as "disposing of
lands" and "copyhold."
N. finds Oxford's letter notable - calling it a rare example where EO
shows true concern and regard for Burghley.
More letters from Wivenhoe
- In one, EO responds to the "sinister reports" and says it
was all youthful folly. N finds it funny that a 22 year old asks for
dismissal of silly things he did in his youth (i.e. at 21). It is kinda
funny.
Why Oxford was Broke
Nelson makes a big deal
of Oxford's spending and selling, and repeats the mistaken generalization
we have heard before: that Edward de Vere wasted his entire patrimony.
But in various ways the Oxford estate was encumbered and tied-up before
Oxford came of age. Some obligations were ancient, some came as a result
of John EO16's will and debts at the time of his death. More problems
and siphoning take place during the ten years of the management of his
estate (from age 12-22) by the Court of Wards. Other limitations, fines
and restrictions encumbered the estate through inheritence law, feudal
land laws, royal prerogative, and coming-of-age fees. Oxford's own teenage
spending spree was not a factor in his overall finances. And his spending
was controlled and authorized by Cecil. When Oxford entered his estates
at 22, he was cash poor and had a lot of expensive projects in mind,
including travel. IF EO17 had been a boring conservative country Lord,
it is true that he could have sat back at that point, paid his bills,
and been a rich man for life. But he wasn't that sort of person. I can
offer one possible motive for EO feeling the immediate need to make
assets liquid where possible - to generate immediate up-front money
rather than wait patiently for incremental annuity payments. If he was
really sickly, and/or hypochondriac, then *he probably didn't expect
to live very long.* Also he had accidentally killed a man in a moment's
flash so he was clearly aware of the possibility of an early sudden
death.
My point is, Oxford is accused of wasting his *entire* estate and ruining
his once great family. But even if we call him a cad and a wastrel,
he actually "wasted" at best a third to half of his estate
- those parts he had access to. The rest was the work of other people.
And Tudor policy.
Fact: the Oxford line did not end with Edward, nor was it brought to
disgrace. By a wise second marriage and skillful manipulation of those
few assets he had left, *EO17 was able to provide a legacy and continuance
(by one means or another) for his widow, son and three
daughters*. Fact: the Oxfords bounced back. Henry EO18 married a Cecil
and reconnected the families. The line continued through EO 20. All
the later EOs are *every bit as interesting as Edward,* just as the
16 EOs before Edward are heroic/legendary men of England. This is the
context of his life - and even though his real life work has gone largely
unrecognized, EO17 was every inch a Vere. Last point: from Henry VIII
on down, the Crown was gunning for the old, respected, traditionally
Catholic English families of landed wealth and honor, including the
Veres - to bring them down a notch. Elizabeth succeeded to a large degree,
with Oxford, and with much of the rest of the Aristocracy. You have
read that the English Renaissance marked the end of Feudalism in England.
Well it did. Oxford's case is an example of the old world's economy
crumbling as the new one took over - with writs and a sea of lawyers.
It was easier to grab control of smaller families with fragile male
inheritance lines like the Veres than huge landed families like the
Howards, who had many males guarding many pieces. It is true that the
Crown never really had to wrest any *land* back, because the Crown already
owned *all* the land (after the dissolution of the monasteries, that
is). Under Elizabeth, and then the Stuarts, it increasingly became crown
policy to reduce the power and economic influence in England of *the
OLD aristocratic families* and rather to create NEW MEN and new wealth-holding
families with an allegiance only to the *current crown* - devoid of
messy nostalgia or historic memory. Part of this was a jealousy and
fear of those families with 'alternative authentic British royal blood'
and part was the process of the development of "Divine Right"
- a total autocratic-theocratic dictatorship.
Shakespeare was the witness and journalist to this changing world. Yet,
he probably approved of Divine Right, and philosopher kings - at least
in a theoretical way - providing the right person was on the throne.
Chapter 18 - Murder
N recounts the details of
the March 1573 death of George Saunders, a merchant in London. The man
accused, then tortured and executed for the crime was George Brown.
The only reason this story is here is that Brown had been, at one time,
in EO's service. N can't implicate Oxford by motive or means, and doesn't
even try. News pamphlets N describes as "damage control" were
written and published by Arthur Golding, and 14 years later by Holinshed
in his Chronicles. N introduces Holinshed as "yet another Burghley
protege".
Hey, let's stop a minute and pull the camera back - Look: so many of
"Burghley's proteges" are men who wrote the books that *Shakespeare*
relied on. .... A side project I'm slowly working on is an analysis
of the books dedicated to Burghley. If you look at these, and add the
Oxford collection, you have virtually everything you need to emulate
Shakespeare. Whatever his faults, if there had been no Burghley, there
wouldn't have been the Shakespeare phenomenon. At the beginning, he
inspired Oxford (and I believe encouraged his interests in literature
and theater) and he served, at the very end of his life to witness or
engineer the groundbreaking of the cover-story. If I'm not mistaken
there actually is a book that presents a Burghley=Shakespeare theory.
The Saunders murder also gets ink in Munday's A View of Sundry Examples
1580 and the Lord Chamberlain's Men play A Warning for Fair Women
printed in 1599. N reminds us that this is "Shakespeare's company."
The logic here is a classic Berkeley pretzel: Oxford, a man who can't
possibly be Shakespeare, uses his friends and employees to write and
publish "damage control" texts on an event that touched his
name and reputation - the final example occurring in a non-canonical
"Shakespeare's company" play. In other words, Shakespeare's
company was involved in propaganda on behalf of the 17th
Earl of Oxford at a time when Oxford was still alive.
Can't we use this pretzel to prop open the door to the obvious truth?
Another mystery: - Is that "new" Canadian-owned painting of
Shakespeare "Saunders' revenge?" :^)
Next
Under Construction
- visit again ...
