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History: What Really Happened?
2. Lord Burghley’s Revenge.
George Bernard Shaw used to write long prefaces to his plays in which he discussed issues of the day and, of course, himself and his relationship to The Great Bard.
Now George Bernhard Shaw suggested he might be better than Shakespeare, or at least, better than the person who used the pseudonym, so may I suggest I might be better than him at least in the quantity stakes for I offer two prefaces and a part of a play and an informed commentary explaining the origins of the same.
Preface 1.
Dear reader I must tell you that the Great Bard was both great genius and great oaf. He was also victim of the greatest cover up in history. As soon as I first read the official biography, such as it is, I knew there had been a cover up. Until now I neither knew who did the covering, nor why. What I did know was that no ignorant country bumpkin, living amongst the lowest ruffians and vagabonds of the age, could write about kings and princes, their courts, their history and foreign places which he had never seen. Further, a thousand close packed pages of print as small as this comprise my version of The Complete Works, yet not one play written in his own hand has come down to us. Not one. Not even a sonnet. Not, do you believe me, a single page! No bill for pen or parchment has come to light, no note to his tailor, no letter to friend or lover (and, knowing how famous he was surely one of them would have treasured the original and passed it on as an heirloom?). But no, we have none of these. All we have is his signature scrawled on his will. A shaky hand, the effort one might say of one who was not only expiring but also was unused to putting pen to paper. The Will of the Bard? Will it do? IT WILL NOT.
This shattering lack of evidence is too staggering to countenance. Surely, if anyone consumed writing materials like there was no tomorrow, the Bard used to do so? Someone must have done so. Where is all the missing paperwork?
It has been suggested, facetiously, that if Shakespeare did not write the Complete Works then someone else did, using the same name! Quite. Even before I discovered the truth I had deduced this much and when you have read the evidence you will wonder, as I do still, how it is the historians and other experts have failed to recognise that Shakespeare, the author, obviously adopted a pseudonym, to wit, Shakespeare. Once one grasps this elementary fact, that Shakespeare was not his real name, then it is relatively easy to explain how the man who wasn’t Shakespeare managed to write the Complete Works.
More than this, no longer blinded by the propaganda, we can begin to understand what manner of man the Bard really was. Surely this is historically important! The other fellow with the same name did walk with crowds and swear with kings, in several languages at once. He was always keen to point out his skill by including annoying quotes in Latin and French, which I refuse to translate, and which present similar difficulties to anyone lacking a classical education as did the supposed Bard.
What’s more he must have had money and servants to do the daily chores. How else would he find the time to write 37 plays in so short a space of time?
My prime suspect is Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. He dissipated his inheritance. It is on record he supported the players of his age so this is a major clue and he needed to promote his own work. What author does not?
Even if I am correct it is unlikely recognition will be Oxford’s. Too many reputations are hitched to an impostor’s star for any revolution now and this is entirely due to the revenge exacted by Lord Burghley’s. For four centuries this eminent statesman has called the tune. Read on, dear reader, discover the truth, and even though the 38th play is incomplete you may be encouraged to spread the word. Who knows, if enough of you look hard enough and long enough, one of you may discover the rest of Burghley’s script, or other, supporting evidence.
Preface 2
Lord Burghley (surname Cecil) was the first Queen Elizabeth’s chief minister for decades (and also for foreign affairs), in both, her good and faithful servant. Thus, the propaganda. It is nearly, but not quite, true. For much of his long period in office Burghley kept from the Queen a piece of information she very much wanted to know. His refusal to let her into the secret naturally bugged her excessively, so she bugged him. She placed listening devices (maids in waiting, so called because that’s what they mainly did) in all the strategic places; she set verbal traps for him like, “Well, Burghley, what ain’t you told me today, eh?” She even placed ear trumpets in the wainscotting and used to employ wainscot tourers to monitor them. To no avail. Burghley was nothing if not prudent. He knew he had a lousy microphone voice and kept his lips tightly compressed.
So effective were his tactics that it was not until he was about to expire from old age and the strain brought on by excessive silence, that the Queen saw a chance to prize the secret from him.
The Queen acted swiftly. At her command a special potion was prepared and as soon as she had possession of this she stepped out of her Royal Dignity (two doors along from the Palace of Westminster, for discretion’s sake, you know,) and hurried to the dying minister, determined to take full advantage of Burghley’s weakened state. It is a common trait of the female of the species to act thus, ask any man, and most marked in Queens.
Arriving at number ten (one door down from Royal Dignity) she found the old man slumped in an armchair, much too weak to move, let alone arise. It did not matter; he’d already been knighted before he was ennobled, but now he was nobled well and truly.
“Aha! I have you at last!” the Queen cried, forgetting for a moment she was supposed to be the virgin queen.
Burghley, half dead, knew if she did it would finish him off. Cautiously he opened one bleary eye. The Queen was brandishing a spoon and bowl, and in the latter was a thick, sluggishly moving liquid. The threat was worse than he’d expected, but you don’t get to be chief minister for decades (and foreign affairs) without a certain insight into the way of monarch’s. Gamely keeping his lips firmly closed Burghley held up a notice he’d previously prepared in a beautiful italic script. "Is that Mulligatawny?"
“Quake, O faithless one,” the Queen cried, triumphantly. “It is!”
Burghley peeled away the top page to reveal another previously prepared note.
"Mulligatawny, Ma'am, is poison to me. Give it to Lord Oxford, or Walter Raleigh."
“No chance,” barked the Queen, thrusting a brimming spoon against his clenched teeth. “Open wide!”
Burghley turned the notice over. "Never!"
“I command you!” the Queen commanded, imperiously, thrusting hard and scraping the spoon against the minister’s teeth. Several layers of plaque were removed but the Queen failed in her objective, further penetration.
Shakily, Burghley held up another previously and beautifully prepared italic message. "I'd rather go to the Tower."
This was true. They did Thames broth in there which he quite liked. Usually it comprised a ladle of river plus whatever solids happened to be picked up. Tastes, in the 16th century, were different.
The Queen knocked aside the notice. “We both know you’d expire before you got there,” she retorted. “You shall drink Mulligatawny.” Again, like a duellist, left leg back, right knee bent, she thrust with the spoon.
“THIS IS TORTURE!” the next note read.
The Queen permitted herself the beginning of a smile. “Has it occurred to you a scene like this will make a damn fine film clip?”
Burghley scrabbled amongst his voluminous robes and finally located a piece of board. “I’d get all the sympathy!”
“Oh, no you won’t,” the Queen retorted. “I shall edit the script!”
Burghley, aghast at this lack of regard for historical verisimilitude, was struck speachful. He must protest and as his mouth dropped open realised too late she had sprung the trap.
As quick as rising prices the Queen jammed spoon and its contents between his teeth, grasped his nose in a pincher like grip using pliers previously acquired, and so forced Burghley to
swallow.
Mulligatawny to Burghley was like Thames broth would be to us. He knew he would never recover. To make sure of this the Queen was poised to deliver a second dose. That would be beyond endurance. His tired old frame could take no more. He had finally lost and he knew it.
“Your majesty is so cruel,” he eventually muttered, grimacing in aftertaste. “I have no wish to carry this with me to heaven. God, that would be hell!”
“Cruel! Me! For thirty years you’ve kept me in the dark. My father would have beheaded you years ago!”
“Then you would never have found out.”
“That is why you lived.”
“Ma’am, it is excessively cruel to bring about and then to torture my final moments.”
“No point in torturing any others,” the Queen retortured. “Defiance has a price.”
Burghley sighed, heavily. “I know, and I know you know I know you know. I cannot face another spoonful. You win.”
The Queen beamed. “You mean it?”
“Give me wine and I’ll reveal all.”
“Just the facts,” the Queen insisted, primly. “Keep the party clean.” She poured him a generous goblet of red but only allowed him to sip.
“More, please. I need more!”
The Queen denied him. “I want a sober tale, not a meandering whining.”
Burghley, to show he’d got the joke, smiled weakly. He opened a secret drawer amongst his drawers and produced an ancient roll. Staggering to his feet he offered the parchment to the Queen.
“A manuscript,” the Queen cried! She was delighted for she loved reading scrolls in imperious voice. Then her smile faded as she realised what she’d been given. “This is a drama!”
“Indeed, Ma’am,” Burghley admitted with a weak but wicked smile. He knew she deplored all things thespian. “At least it is written by me in modern English. You’ll know when you’ve been slandered.”
“We’ll see,” the Queen replied, grimly. She thrust Burghley back in his chair. “Don’t go away.”
“No, Ma’am. I’m dying.”
“That can wait!”
Elizabeth settled herself in the window seat opposite and began to read.
What follows, dear reader, is Burghley’s work, discovered by me, and never previously released. You see, afterwards the Queen did alter the film script and suppressed the original. Until now the following pages have been buried in, Aha, not so fast. That would be telling and I will not.
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