Shakespeare's Ear

by Tim Rayborn

  Finally, as with the other contenders, the Oxfordian case requires a pretty grand conspiracy of silence that no one ever bothered to reveal or accidentally let slip, not even after Shakespeare’s death. Actors and their ilk were not especially known for sobriety, and after a few drinks, if any of them knew that Shakespeare was a fake, in all likelihood it would have been all over the tavern and then the city. But somehow, no one else discovered this plot until Looney revealed the truth to the world in 1918, thus at last opening the floodgates of Oxfordian scholarship.

  One Oxfordian, Percy Allen, was convinced that the matter could be settled by séance; the spirits of Shakespeare and Oxford would reveal the truth! He worked with the medium Hester Dowden, but there was a slight snag: Dowden had already determined with an earlier client that Bacon had authored the plays. This was remedied when she revealed to Allen that actually Oxford was the author, Shakespeare prepped them for performance (and added comedy), and Bacon oversaw the whole endeavor. Marvelous! Obviously, this didn’t convince many people.

  Ghostly explanations aside, none of the proposed alternative authors seem compelling. Moreover, the contemporary evidence from Shakespeare’s times does not raise any qualms about the authorship. For instance, Ben Jonson—who also didn’t have a university education but curiously doesn’t seem to have his reputation as a genuine playwright questioned—wrote of Shakespeare in his private papers and spoke of him as a writer of plays, joking that Shakespeare should have blotted out far more of his own lines than he did. But Ben confessed that he loved the man to the point of idolatry and honored his memory. Would he have really said such words of a fake? And in a journal that was never intended to be made public?

  In the accounts for the Master of Revels (the official in charge of courtly theatrical entertainment) from 1604–1605, Shakespeare is listed seven times as the author of various plays performed for the king. Would the inner circle of royalty really have been conspirators in keeping a dead earl’s secret? Or Bacon’s? And would such a secret have been kept for so long?

  Some people seem to have a difficult time believing that genius can manifest itself in unlikely places; they want a reason or a logical explanation for everything. The vehemence of some anti-Stratfordians (whose long-winded blogs and websites can be quite a slog) recalls the hyper detail of other conspiracy sites that turn over every little fact to prove a point, but sometimes simply ignore common sense and the bigger picture. Occam’s razor still applies; the simplest solution is most often the correct one, and there are more than enough reasons to believe that a country man from a glover’s family created some of the greatest works in the English language.

  Shakespeare’s ear and the golden earring

  There are several paintings and images claiming to be of Shakespeare; a much larger number based on these early examples appeared in subsequent centuries. They have helped to create the popular image of the man that we know today: balding, but with hair to his shoulders, a beard or goatee, and middle-class clothing. The so-called Chandos portrait of Will is possibly a painting of him from life (the famous Martin Droeshout engraving from the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays didn’t appear until seven years after Shakespeare’s death), and recently, another painting, the Cobbe portrait, has also been suggested as being genuine. Many now believe that an artist named John Taylor (ca. 1585–1651) painted the Chandos portrait, though tradition has held that it was painted by Richard Burbage, Shakespeare’s friend and a principal actor in the company. Burbage had some skill in painting and portraiture, among his many other talents. The picture may later have been owned by William Davenant (the actor with the missing nose who implied that he was Shakespeare’s illegitimate son). It was the first painting to be acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in London, in 1856. The Gallery’s experts consider it to be an authentic representation of Shakespeare, made during his lifetime.

  The painting is unusual, in that it shows a man who does indeed resemble the later Droeshout engraving, with a bit more hair (which may have been added at a later date) and a darker, almost Mediterranean, complexion. Some theorize that Shakespeare actually had Jewish or Arabic blood, or maybe was part Italian or Spanish, which might explain his love for Italy and its prominence in so many plays. That Shakespeare was English (and as we have seen, Protestant) has long been an almost sacred belief for his legions of admirers. So ensconced was this belief about his national identity that Victorians fairly recoiled at the idea that Shakespeare could be anything other than a red-blooded Anglo-Saxon. They tended to dismiss the Chandos portrait’s authenticity on the grounds that the subject simply did not look “English” enough to be Shakespeare.

  Later, Sigmund Freud (a great admirer of Shakespeare’s works and an advocate of Oxford as the author of the plays) thought that the portrait was genuine and believed that it showed clear French features. He proposed that “Shakespeare” was a corruption of the French name “Jacques Pierre.” More recently, Iraqi historian and journalist Safa Khulusi (1917–1995) argued that the family name was originally “Shaykh Zubayr” and was Anglicized, which could explain why it has so many different spellings (more than eighty at last count). He proposed that words of Arabic origin appear more commonly than might be expected in the plays, and that the Chandos portrait clearly shows a man with Middle Eastern features and a beard in a style that Arab and Turkish men wore at the time. Ultimately, it’s difficult to confirm or deny any of these theories, which are fun but unprovable; it may just be that this depiction was the style in which the painter chose to represent Shakespeare, assuming that it is him.

  But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the painting does portray Shakespeare, as the National Gallery maintains. One feature stands out, and that’s the gold ring worn in his ear. Is it significant? Well, men’s earrings were not uncommon among the upper classes; often a pearl or some other jewel was worn in the left ear. The Puritan and satirist Philip Stubbes (ca. 1555–ca. 1610) wrote in 1583 in his wonderfully titled pamphlet, “The Anatomie of Abuses,” about all of the vanities in which the upper classes indulged, and he had pointed things to say about the fashion of earrings:

  Another sorte of dissolute minions & wanton Sempronians (for I can term them no better) are so far bewitched, as they are not ashamed to make holes in their eares, wherat they hang rings, and other Jewels of gold and precious stones. But what this signifieth in them I will houlde my peace, for the thing it selfe speaketh sufficiently. But because this is not so much frequented amongest Women as Men, I will say noe more thereof, until I further occasion be offred.

  Clearly, he wasn’t impressed with the look.

  For those of lower ranks, it seems that the earring could indicate a devotion to a more bohemian lifestyle: artists, poets, painters, musicians, players, dramatists, and a dozen other such creative and unconventional types. This was the crowd that Shakespeare ran with and the portrait, in showing the earring and the open collar, may have been a conscious choice to portray him among them, in sharp contrast to the fact that he had a wife and children back in Stratford and so was reasonably “respectable.”

  One other group associated with gold earrings at the time was, of course, pirates! Though we might more often associate the word with Long John Silver, peg legs, parrots on shoulders, and Arrrrs, piracy goes back much further. It’s relationship with authority has been varied. In Elizabethan times, there was a group known as the Sea Dogs, who were authorized by the queen to raid and loot Spanish ships and bring their treasures back to England for the crown. The most famous of these oceanic canines included: Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir John Hawkins. Notice something? Yeah, they’re all knights. Or rather, they were all knighted for their, ahem, “services” to the queen, which included piracy among other nautical feats. This activity wore down the Spanish fleet over time and made these “privateers” (as they were also known) extremely rich. They differed sharply from outlaw pirates, of course, but the risks they took were no less dangerous.


  One fashion of less-wealthy pirates at the time was to wear a gold loop in the ear. This was to ensure that they always had a ready supply of money at hand, to pay for things such as their funeral expenses, should the need arise. Does this mean that Shakespeare might have been a pirate? Some have suggested so, but it’s doubtful, even knowing that many of his prime years are lost to us. It makes for a wonderful story, though: the young man leaving a small country town, seeking adventure in London, boarding a ship and witnessing privateering firsthand, and later wearing an earring to remind himself of those days while he wrote his masterpieces. A fun idea, but almost certainly a fiction. Shakespeare’s ear was adorned with a golden ring for the same reason as those of his buddies and colleagues: he was a part of a group of artists indulging in the fashion of the time to identify themselves with a scene, rather like tattoos or hipster beards, and for a lot of people, they were probably just as obnoxiously trendy and annoying.

  Where is Shakespeare’s head?

  What is it with famous people whose heads go missing after their deaths? Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and now apparently Shakespeare too? Well, a lot of it has to do with the macabre practice of treasure and relic hunters, looking for unusual keepsakes. However, there was also a popular pseudoscience in the nineteenth century known as phrenology, which held that you could determine the level of someone’s intelligence and abilities by measuring the size and shape of their skull. It was believed that certain talents resided in specific parts of the brain, and so looking at the indents and shape of a given skull could provide clues about that person’s abilities. Shakespeare would have been an obvious target for such curious quacks, so it’s probably not at all surprising that his head was removed in the dead of night at some point.

  But the question of Shakespeare’s potential missing skull has been the subject of legend even before the emergence of phrenology, since the late eighteenth century, in fact, when rumors circulated that the bard’s head had been removed from his grave. You may recall the rather grim warning placed at his tomb, presumably to prevent this very thing from happening:

  Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear,

  To dig the dust enclosed here.

  Blessed be the man that spares these stones,

  And cursed be he that moves my bones.

  Apparently, the threat of a curse may not have been enough to scare off some determined grave robbers. Argosy magazine reported in 1879 that Shakespeare’s skull had been stolen from Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1794, but it seemed like little more than sensationalist nonsense. The thing about nonsense, though, is that it sometimes turns out to be true.

  Recently, a team of archeologists was doing a survey of the grave, using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to scan the area. This was done for a TV documentary as part of the bard’s four-hundredth birthday year celebrations and studies in 2016, because nothing says “happy birthday” like poking around in a grave. The researchers were able to disprove that he had been buried standing up (another legend) and that he had been buried very deeply as a further precaution against having his bones moved; in fact, he is only interred about three feet underground and wrapped in a simple shroud, rather than resting in a coffin.

  But they did discover something quite odd. The radar scan showed clear signs of disturbance at the head end of the remains, as if something has been dug up and then refilled. Further, they found “a very strange brick structure” cutting across the head, indicating that someone may have filled in the empty space. They couldn’t conclusively prove that no skull is in there, but it seems likely.

  There is another local legend that states that his head actually resides in the crypt of St. Leonard’s Church in Beoley, Worcestershire, a few miles away. The team diligently tested the skull, but found it to be that of a woman in her seventies, putting the nail in the coffin (so to speak) of another legend.

  So, Shakespeare’s skull probably was stolen at some point, no doubt to assist in someone’s “research” in a dark, dusty Regency or Victorian laboratory somewhere. Remember Victor Frankenstein and his work? Look how that turned out! The skull was probably lost forever a long time ago, but we can only hope that if it did see the light of day, it was at least used a few times as a stand-in for poor Yorick in Hamlet’s famous speech (more on Yorick skulls below). Even Will might have approved of that.

  William Henry Ireland: the great Shakespeare forger

  The significant lack of surviving documents featuring Shakespeare’s own writing is irritating and is one bit of fuel for conspiracies about him not writing his own plays. Collectors and antiquarians over the centuries have searched in vain for some scraps: fragments of the plays in his own hand, letters to friends and family, legal documents, and other such things. So it was for Samuel Ireland (1744–1800), a noted English writer, scholar, and publisher of contemporary travelogues. He was also an enthusiastic collector of all things Shakespeare and once traveled to Stratford in the hopes of uncovering some precious lost manuscripts (one legend says that he was informed to his horror that several authentic documents had been destroyed only a week before he arrived, though this is unlikely), but it was not to be.

  So, you can imagine his delight when his son, William Henry Ireland (1775–1835), announced to his father in December 1794 that an undisclosed contact had provided him with several documents from the bard’s life, written in Shakespeare’s own hand! The collection included a deed signed by Shakespeare, a letter from him thanking his patron, the Earl of Southampton, for support, a letter from Queen Elizabeth I, a love poem to Anne Hathaway, “original” manuscripts for King Lear and Hamlet, and other treasures, which had all been conveniently awaiting discovery in a chest and were now seeing the light of day again nearly two centuries later.

  The elder Ireland was beside himself with joy and immediately began to study them in depth. Convinced of their authenticity, he showed them to other experts, who mostly also proclaimed them as genuine. In 1795/96, Samuel Ireland published a lavish book about the findings, titled Miscellaneous Papers and Legal Instruments under the Hand and Seal of William Shakespeare. This brought the documents national attention and greater scrutiny, but nothing immediately negative happened.

  Then in 1796, an even more amazing discovery was announced. William claimed to have found a lost play, Vortigern and Rowena, written in the bard’s own hand and long forgotten. He presented it to his overjoyed father. Almost immediately, however, there was skepticism. But while some experts and actors declared the work to be a fraud based on its inferior style, others, including Samuel, were convinced of its authenticity; as much as anything, he probably just really wanted to believe it. He eventually arranged for it to be performed at Drury Lane on April 2, 1796. Some had suggested that it be shown on April 1, thinking the whole thing was a spoof.

  One scholar in particular, Edmond Malone, had published only two days before his An Enquiry into the Authenticity of Certain Papers and Legal Instruments, an exhaustive (and boringly named) four-hundred-page tome that refuted the documents and declared them to be contemporary forgeries. His supporters packed the house for the play’s first, and ultimately last, showing. One of the lead actors, John Philip Kemble (1757–1823), who also managed the theater, was likewise deeply skeptical. During the performance, he made sure to add extra emphasis to one line: “And when this solemn mockery is o’er.” Malone’s supporters knew he was on their side and began catcalls and other disruptions. The play failed and was not shown again until a 2008 revival.

  Things unraveled quickly after the disastrous opening, as more scholars came forward to denounce the entire collection. William, realizing the game was up, was prompted to write An Authentic Account of the Shaksperian Manuscripts, wherein he confessed to the forgeries and tried to clear his father’s name, which was now being sullied by its association with the whole thing. Indeed, Samuel’s next travelogue failed and his reputation never recovered. He remained defiant, however, and to his dying day, the poor man was convinced that a
ll of these manuscripts were the real deal.

  One problem was that many who read William’s confession were equally unimpressed with his claims. The papers were forgeries, yes, but could a young man who was only eighteen at the time really have created work that was good enough to fool even top scholars, at least for a little while? His father, being far more knowledgeable on all things Shakespeare and frustrated by the lack of original documents, they charged, was far more likely to be the actual forger, and was now letting his son take the fall for it. However, William continued to insist that he was indeed the man behind the manuscripts, and Samuel’s defiant insistence in the face of ridicule that they were genuine would seem to point to the younger Ireland being the culprit. William’s own budding career as a writer suffered greatly from the affair; he could have improved his standing by blaming his father, but he didn’t. His later attempt to publish Vortigern and Rowena as a play that he had written also met with no success; he was known mostly as a hack writer throughout his life and died in poverty.

  In the end, it seems that an enthusiastic young man wanted to give his father something he had always dreamed of finding, regardless of the consequences. But after the whole thing blew up, it broke the old man’s heart, and he could never let go of the idea that he had stumbled onto one of the greatest Shakespearean finds of all time.

  Yorick’s skull, like, for real

  It’s one of the most iconic scenes in Hamlet, and even non-aficionados recognize it—that moment when the doomed Dane holds up a skull, saying, “Alas, poor Yorick!” Poor Yorick indeed; Hamlet may have known him, but we don’t. He’s a court jester who is already dead by the time of the story. The image of Hamlet holding the skull and musing on the fleeting nature of life—“Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs?”—is a striking one, but surprisingly, it may not date back to the bard’s own time. The first artistic representation of Hamlet holding the dead fool’s skull dates only from the eighteenth century, though actual players may well have been using skull props for much longer.