So, What Do I Think?
I’ve spent the last several months immersed in private listservs and books, CDs and DVDs (when I’m not hopelessly hooked on a computer game, working or answering e-mail). Elizabethan England is a remarkable place to visit…. rack, be-headings, Martin Mar-prelate and all.
I’ve learned that ladies were lifted by the busk in the Volta and not what it looked like in Elizabeth: the Golden Age. The dance was considered scandalous because the dancers’ knees were revealed. Despite its title, the painting of Elizabeth and Dudley dancing is of two unidentified dancers and is associated with the French Valois school, c. 1580.
It’s a wonder France didn’t declare war on Hollywood for the way the Duke of Angou was portrayed in Elizabeth. Theirs was a long and apparently sincere courtship that might have resulted in marriage if her Frog hadn’t been French. Elizabeth reportedly danced for joy in her chambers when it ended but she reportedly danced a Galliard every morning anyway just to stay fit. She also took brisk walks in the gardens. Perhaps that’s how she managed to eat enough sweets to rot her teeth without losing her svelte shape. Next fad diet: The Elizabeth I
I’ve learned there’s dissension in the ranks of Oxfordians. I’m determined to remain neutral and open-minded on some of the issues such as ciphers and the incorrectly labeled “Prince Tudor” idea, at least as far as is possible. Roland Emmerich’s film is receiving much criticism before it’s even shot and I don’t think it will bring about the end of civilization as we know it any more than Shakespeare In Love did when it took seven Oscars. Anonymous may interest people who don’t know there’s a controversy over the authorship of Shake-speare’s works and some of those people may sit on school boards. Those who are outraged don’t have to sit on theater seats.
These things may not be sound scholarship or even pleasant, but ciphers and scandals can hook the public as much as specials at supermarkets do. I may not go in to buy the ham on sale but I’m sure to find something I like once I’m through the door.
I now own two books on possible ciphers in Thorpe’s dedication and elsewhere and will shortly download a third. Ciphers aren’t too Baconian for me. I don’t think the fall of the house of Bacon was due to Ignatius L. Donnelly’s contortions or even Robert Fowler’s Freemason fantasy. In my opinion a better candidate has come along and he, apparently, would have been exposed to ciphers from a book in Lord Burghley’s household and from a familiarity with Cardano, author of Cardanus Comfort, “Hamlet’s book”, which he had published in Bedingfield’s translation. I think the Cardano Grille should be applied to other writings of the period to see if anything shows up. Hopefully the messages would be deeper than George Frisbee’s “Edward loves Mary” found in a poem by Sir Phillip Sidney.
Despite the fact they now inspire nonsense like this ciphers were common in their time. Without them Mary, Queen of Scots, might have kept her head (when all about her were losing theirs and blaming it on her – sorry). I’m mathematically challenged and don’t even understand how astronomical odds against coincidence are calculated but I have read enough refutations of William Dembski to know the odds against something happening don’t matter much. If something did happen the odds that it happened become 100%. The odds that The de Vere Code would reach me from England with no State or zip code given on the mailer weren’t good, but I have the book nonetheless. I do not take this as a “sign”. I can and do read everything I can get my hands on concerning Edward de Vere whether I agree with it or not. I can’t know if I agree until I’ve read it. I would be equally interested in a point-by-point refutation on some of the findings. The case for Oxford does not rest on ciphers or anagrams but I might be more convinced if “ever” had been spelled “evere”.
Ben Jonson said he didn’t need a Cypher. What does that mean? That he had them and knew how to use them?
Anyone who has been through High School knows vicious rumors can get started for no apparent reason. Was Elizabeth the victim of these or might she have better been styled The Technical Virgin Queen? She denied the slanders and offered to show herself to the Council “as I am”. Of course if Edward was her son he might have entered his tutor’s household at the age of six instead of only four and that would solve one little mystery. I don’t know of any plans to dig up Elizabeth’s body for DNA testing to determine if she was Henry Wriosthesley’s mother, but maybe after the Fulke Greville investigation is completed they can go after the Queen.
The fart story (referred to in the highly inaccurate article linked above) about Queen Elizabeth’s Lord High Chamberlain is from John Aubrey and ranks with Shakspere’s speeches over dead calves and Mary Sidney’s romps with her “stallions” for sheer improbability. What a way to be remembered over 400 years later.
I realize in this day and age of Truthers and Birthers and Tea Partiers it’s hard to imagine other eras could have had their own lunatic fringes.
I no longer use the Bolbec crest (the lion with the spear is a later addition, but who added it and why?) as an argument and I’m backing off the canopy now that I’m told de Vere was “too high” to have physically born the canopy over the Queen. His duties at James’ coronation would have been quite different. The Earl of Derby was one of the five earls available to bear the canopy over James. Derby is suspected of being a “true author” and was married to one of de Vere’s daughters. The Earl of Montgomery, Pembroke’s brother, was married to another.
I now think “bases for eternity” may have a very different meaning in terms of poetry and have nothing to do with monuments. The word “canopy” has many uses – “ this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire”, “When lofty trees I see barren of leaves, Which erst from heat did canopy the herd“,”O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones,Which with sweet water nightly I will dew“…….all written by the butcher’s boy, of course.
‘Presumably the magister camerarius became the hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain, whose coronation services, which are connected with the charge of the King’s bedchamber, the handing of a basin and towel at the banquet, and the preparation of the royal oblations, afford a sufficient indication of the duties of the court office.’- E. K. Chambers’ Elizabethan Stage, Vol. I, Chapter 2 (The Royal House hold)
‘”Obsequious” (from association with obsequies) is used often of the mourner, but here of the worshipper approaching the object of his devotion with the “poor but free oblation” that lies at his command, that of sincere and worshipful affection, The unexpected “‘not mixed with seconds”, applied to the sacrificial cake of pure wheaten flour, suggests some literary or ritual reference more direct than commentators have yet unearthed.’ – Canon G. H. Rendall, Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Edward de Vere
Coronation Sonnet by Gwynneth Bowen
The cognoscenti will know what ( )( ) means.
So, what do I think? I think it’s time for tea.
