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Edward de Vere
Earl of Oxford
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, unknown artist after lost original, 1575, National Portrait Gallery, London
Tenure	1550—1562
Born	12 April 1550 Castle Hedingham in Essex
Died	24 June 1604 (aged 54) Brooke House in Hackney
Nationality	English

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (12 April 1550–24 June 1604) was an Elizabethan courtier, playwright, lyric poet, sportsman and patron of the arts, who is today most noted as the strongest alternative candidate proposed for the authorship of Shakespeare's works.

Oxford was one of the leading patrons of the Elizabethan age. Between 1564 and 1599, some 28 books were dedicated to him, including works by Edmund Spenser, Arthur Golding, and John Lyly. Known particularly for his comedies, his theatrical activities included owning the lease on the first Blackfriars Theatre, producing grand entertainments at Hampton Court, and sponsoring at least two acting companies and a company of musicians.

He was born to John de Vere, the 16th Earl of Oxford and the former Margery Golding, probably at Castle Hedingham in Essex. As a royal ward raised by Secretary of State Sir William Cecil, Oxford enjoyed a broad education, including mastery of several languages. He travelled widely throughout Europe, and participated in military campaigns in the Northern Rebellion (1569) and at Flanders in the Anglo-Spanish War (1585), although in what capacity is unknown.

Shakespearean authorship question

In 1920 J. Thomas Looney, an English schoolteacher, proposed de Vere as a candidate for the authorship of Shakespeare's works. The Oxfordian theory gradually replaced the ascendency of Francis Bacon in the field and, since the 1920s, Oxford has been the most widely accepted anti-Stratfordian candidate.

Oxfordians point to the acclaim of Oxford's contemporaries regarding his talent as a poet and a playwright, his reputation as a concealed poet, and his personal connections to London theatre and the contemporary playwrights of Shakespeare's day. They also note his long term relationships with Queen Elizabeth I and the Earl of Southampton, his knowledge of Court life, his extensive and multilingual education, his academic and cultural achievements, and his wide-ranging travels through France and Italy to what would later become the locations of many of Shakespeare's plays.

The claim is rejected by all but a few historians and literary scholars, but is supported by a number of independent scholars, authors, Supreme Court justices, and prominent Shakespearean actors and directors

Early life

On the death of his father on 3 August 1562, the twelve-year-old Oxford became the 17th Earl of Oxford and Lord Great Chamberlain of England, inheriting an annual income of approximately £2250. In his last will and testament, the 16th Earl appointed six executors, including his widow and his only son and heir; however administration of the will was granted on 29 May 1563 to only one of the executors, the 16th Earl's former servant, Robert Christmas.

Because the 16th Earl held land from the Crown by knight service, Oxford became a royal ward and was placed in the household of Sir William Cecil, the Secretary of State, a leading member of Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council, and one of her chief advisors. In view of Oxford's theatrical activities, it is interesting to note that Cecil is regarded by many Elizabethan scholars as the prototype for the character of Polonius in Hamlet. Shortly after the 16th Earl's death, Oxford's mother, Margery (née Golding), married a Gentleman Pensioner named Charles Tyrrell, often erroneously stated to have been the sixth son of Sir Thomas Tyrrell of East Horndon and his wife, Constance Blount, although it is clear from his will that he was not a member of that branch of the Tyrrell family. Oxford's mother died five years later, on 2 December 1568. Oxford's stepfather, Charles Tyrrell, died in 1570, leaving bequests to Oxford and to Oxford's sister, Mary de Vere, in his will.

Oxford benefited from the tutelage of some of the great minds of the Elizabethan age. He was first tutored by the Cambridge don and statesman, Sir Thomas Smith at his estate of Ankerwycke in the Upper Thames Valley from some time in 1554 until the death of Queen Mary. Smith likely taught Oxford a great deal about the subjects which were his abiding passions: civil law, the ancient Greek and Latin languages and literature, horticulture, astronomy-astrology, Paracelsian medicine, and hawking . When Smith was called to prepare for the accession of Elizabeth , Oxford enrolled at Smith's alma mater, Queens' College, Cambridge, where he remained for five months . Another of Oxford's tutors was Thomas Fowle, a fellow at St. John's, Cambridge. As a ward, under Sir William Cecil's supervision Oxford studied French, Latin, writing, drawing, cosmography, dancing, riding and shooting. At Cecil House he was tutored by Laurence Nowell, one of the founding fathers of Anglo-Saxon studies. Nowell was Oxford's tutor in 1563, the same year that Nowell signed his name on the only known copy of the Beowulf manuscript (also known as the "Nowell Codex"). Oxford may also have assisted his maternal uncle, Arthur Golding, in the first English translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. In 1564, while both were living at Cecil House in the Strand, Golding wrote of his young nephew in the dedicatory epistle to Th’ Abridgement of the Histories of Trogus Pompeius, collected and written in the Latin tongue by the famous historiographer Justin:

"It is not unknown to others, and I have had experience thereof myself, how earnest a desire Your Honor hath naturally graffed in you to read, peruse, and communicate with others, as well as the histories of ancient times and things done long ago, as also the present estate of things in our days, and that not without a certain pregnancy of wit and ripeness of understanding." (STC 24290)

During the Queen's visits to Cambridge and Oxford universities in 1564 and 1566, Oxford was awarded a BA by the University of Cambridge on 10 August 1564 and an MA from the University of Oxford on 6 September 1566. On 1 February 1566 he was admitted to Gray's Inn, where he studied law. Alan Nelson, a Stratfordian Oxford biographer, argues that because such degrees were awarded to numerous other persons of rank in the same royal visits they were merely honorary and “unearned," and that “no academic accomplishment or desert is to be imputed to any recipient.” Oxfordian biographers of Oxford disagree with that assessment and point to what John Brooke had to say of Oxford in his dedicatory epistle of The Staff of Christian Faith, published in 1577:

"For if in the opinion of all men, there can be found no one more fitte, for patronage and defence of learning, then the skilfull: for that he is both wyse and able to iudge and discerne truly thereof. I vnderstanding righte well that your honor hathe continually, euen from your tender yeares, bestowed your time and trauayle towards the attayning of the same, as also the vniuersitie of Cambridge hath acknowledged in graunting and giuing vnto you such commendation and prayse thereof, as verily by righte was due vnto your excellent vertue and rare learning. Wherin verily Cambridge the mother of learning, and learned men, hath openly confessed: and in this hir confessing made knowen vnto al men, that your honor being learned and able to iudge as a safe harbor and defence of learning, and therefore one most fitte to whose honorable patronage I might safely commit this my poore and simple labours." (STC 12476)

On 23 July 1567, the seventeen-year-old Oxford accidentally killed an unarmed under-cook, Thomas Brincknell, while practising fencing with Edward Baynham, a merchant tailor, in the backyard of Cecil House in the Strand. The finding of the coroner's inquest was that Brincknell, being intoxicated, had run upon the point of Oxford's sword and was thereby condemned as a suicide. (Interestingly, the English chronicler and Shakespeare source Raphael Holinshed was one of the jurors at this trial.)

Patronage

Oxford was a leading patron of the arts and drama of Elizabethan England, with at least thirty-three works of literature, history, philosophy, theology, music, military theory, and medicine, dedicated to him. Stephen May, commenting on this tradition, calls him “a nobleman with extraordinary intellectual interests and commitments” whose biography exhibits a "lifelong devotion to learning.” Continues May: "The range of Oxford's patronage is as remarkable as its substance. Beginning around 1580 he was the nominal patron of a variety of dramatic troupes, including a band of tumblers as well as companies of adult and boy actors. Among the thirty-three works dedicated to the Earl, six deal with religion and philosophy, two with music, and three with medicine; but the focus of his patronage was literary, for thirteen of the books presented to him were original or translated works of literature." Works patronized by Oxford include Thomas Underdown's influential historical novel Aethiopica (1569), the first Latin translation of Baldassare Castiglione's Courtier (1571),Thomas Bedingfield's (1573) translation of Jerome Cardan's de Comforte (sometimes called "Hamlet's Book"), John Lyly's second Euphues novel, Euphues and His England (1580), Thomas Watson's Hekatompathia (1581), and the first epistolary instruction manual to use English letters as models (Angel Day's English Secretary, 1586).

Court years

By indenture of 1 July 1562, Oxford's father, the 16th Earl, had arranged a marriage for him with one of the sisters of Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon. However when Oxford became a royal ward, this contract was allowed to lapse, and on 16 December 1571 he married Lord Burghley's fifteen-year-old daughter, Anne Cecil — a surprising choice since Oxford was of the oldest nobility in the kingdom whereas Anne was not originally of noble birth, her father having only been raised to the peerage that year by Queen Elizabeth to enable the marriage of social inequals. As master of the queen's Court of Wards, however, Burghley had the power to arrange the marriages of his wards or impose huge fines upon them. Oxford's marriage produced five children, a son and daughter who died young, and three daughters who survived infancy. The Earl's daughters all married into the peerage: Elizabeth married William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby; Bridget married Francis Norris, 1st Earl of Berkshire; and Susan married Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, one of the “INCOMPARABLE PAIRE OF BRETHREN” to whom William Shakespeare's First Folio would be dedicated. Shortly after his marriage, at the age of twenty-two, Oxford was licensed to enter on his lands by the Queen's letters patent of 30 May 1572.

By the 1570s he was a major figure in the Elizabethan court and a leading contender for the affection of Elizabeth I. In a letter of 11 May 1573, one contemporary, Gilbert Talbot, wrote that Oxford had lately grown in great credit with the Queen, and "were it not for his fickle head he would pass any of them shortly". Oxford remained in favour for a time, and won prizes in several tilting tournaments at court.

He toured France, Germany and Italy in 1575-6, and was thought to be of Roman Catholic sympathies, as were many of the old nobility.

On his return across the English Channel in April 1576, Oxford's ship was hijacked by pirates, who stripped him naked, apparently with the intention of murdering him, until they were made aware of his noble status, upon which he was allowed to go free, albeit without most of his possessions. Further controversy ensued after he found that his wife had given birth to a daughter during his journey. Gossip speculated that the child was not his, and Oxford complained that her father's handling of the birth date had made Ann become "the fable of the world". Thus he refused to live with her from 1576 until 1581. In December of 1580, Oxford accused two of his Catholic friends, Lord Henry Howard and Charles Arundel, of treason, and denounced them to the Queen, asking mercy for his own Catholicism, which he repudiated. Both Howard and Arundel later received pensions from Philip II, and furnished Spain with intelligence against England, suggesting that Oxford's allegations against them in 1581 were not without merit. After fleeing to the house of the Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, on the night of 25 December 1580, Howard and Arundel gave themselves up to the authorities, were placed under arrest, and in turn denounced Oxford, accusing him of a laundry list of crimes, including plotting to murder a host of courtiers, such as Sir Philip Sidney and the Earl of Leicester. The charges against Oxford were not taken seriously at the time, although the libels found their way into some historical accounts and Oxford's reputation was thereafter tarnished. Charles Arundel later fled England in December 1583 for fear of arrest, was declared guilty of high treason in 1585, and died in exile in Paris in 1587. Lord Henry Howard was again arrested in 1583 and 1585, but remained in England throughout Queen Elizabeth's reign, and was created Earl of Northampton by her successor, King James I.

Oxford fathered an illegitimate son by Anne Vavasour, Sir Edward Vere, in 1581, and for this offence was imprisoned in the Tower of London for several months, and later placed under house arrest and banished from court. He was not permitted to return to court until 1 June 1583. By Christmas of 1581, after a five year separation, Oxford had reconciled with his wife, Anne Cecil. However his affair with Anne Vavasour led to a fray in the streets of London in 1582 with Anne Vavasour's uncle, Sir Thomas Knyvet, a courtier in favour with the Queen. On 3 March 1582, Oxford fought with Knyvet, and both men were 'hurt', Oxford 'more dangerously,' and Oxford's man 'Gerret' was slain. Oxford's injury perhaps resulted in the lameness mentioned in his letter to Lord Burghley of 25 March 1595.

Later years

In 1585, Lord Oxford was given a military command in Flanders, and served during the Battle of the Spanish Armada in 1588. His first wife Anne Cecil died in 1588 at the age of 32. In 1591, Oxford married Elizabeth Trentham, one of the Queen's Maids of Honour. This marriage produced his heir, Henry, Lord Vere, later the 18th Earl of Oxford.

Extensive patronage, as well as possible mismanagement of his finances reduced Oxford to straitened financial circumstances, and in 1586 he was granted an annual pension of £1,000 by the Queen. It has been suggested that the annuity may also have been granted for his services in maintaining a group of writers and a company of actors, and that the obscurity of his later life is to be explained by his immersion in literary and dramatic pursuits. As noted above, he was indeed a notable patron of writers including Edmund Spenser, Arthur Golding, Robert Greene, and Thomas Churchyard. In addition to patronizing the creative work of John Lyly and Anthony Munday, both considered important sources for and influences on Shakespeare, he employed them as secretaries, although for how long is not clearly known. According to at least one 17th century source (Anthony A. Wood), he also employed for some time the Democritean philosopher Nicholas Hill as a secretary.

Oxford seemed destined to enjoy greater favour under King James, whose accession he supported, than he had during the latter years of Queen Elizabeth's reign. On 18 July 1603, the King granted Oxford's decades-long suit to be restored to the offices of steward of Waltham Forest and keeper of the King's house and park at Havering, and on 2 August 1603 the King confirmed Oxford's annuity of £1000. Less than a year later, Oxford died on 24 June 1604 of unknown causes at Brooke House in Hackney. He was buried on 6 July at St John-at-Hackney, although his cousin, Percival Golding (son of Arthur Golding), reported a few years later that he was buried at Westminster Abbey. Contrary to much which has been written on the topic, Oxford died a relatively wealthy man, having acquired property in 1580 which by the time of his death had been extensively developed, and was considered to be worth £20,000.

Writing

Oxford was described as both a poet and a playwright in his own lifetime, but only a small corpus of his poems and songs are extant under his own name, the dates of which (and in some cases the authorship) are uncertain; most of these are signed "Earle of Oxenforde" or "E.O.". During his lifetime, Oxford was lauded by other English poets, both for his patronage and for his literary, scholarly, and musical avocations (for example, see one of the epistolary sonnets to Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene). In 1589 the author of the anonymously published Arte of English Poesie (1589), usually identified as George Puttenham, wrote:

"And in her Majesties time that now is are sprong up an other crew of Courtly makers Noble men and Gentlemen of her Majesties owne servauntes, who have written excellently well as it would appeare if their doings could be found out and made publicke with the rest, of which number is first that noble Gentleman Edward Earle of Oxford” (STC 20519).

Francis Meres's Palladis Tamia (1598) listed Oxford as a playwright, describing him as among "the best for comedy".

B.M. Ward attributed 24 poems to Oxford in in his 1928 edition of Hundredth Sundrie Flowres, the 1573 collection of poetry attributed to soldier of fortune and poet George Gascoigne. His attribution has not gained academic acceptance.

Oxford’s surviving correspondence focuses mainly on business affairs such as the Cornish tin monopoly and his ongoing desire for several royal monopolies and stewardships. Oxford maintained both adult and children's theatre companies, and a letter from the Privy Council in March 1602 shows his active involvement on behalf of a "third" acting company who liked to play at "the Bores head":

"beinge joyned by agreement togeather in on Companie (to whom, upon noteice of her Maiesties pleasure at the suit of the Earl of Oxford, tolleracion hath ben thought meete to be graunted, notwithstandinge the restraint of our said former Orders), doe no tye them selfs to one certaine place and howse, but do chainge their place at there owne disposition, which is as disorderly and offensive as the former offence of many howses, and as the other Companies that are allowed . . . be appointed there certine howses and one and no more to each Company. Soe we do straighly require that this third Companie be likewise to one place and because we are informed the house called the Bores head is the place they have especially used and doe best like of, we doe pray and require yow that the said howse . . . may be assigned to them, and that they be very straightlie Charged to use and exercise there plays in no other but that howse, as they looke to have that tolleracion continued and avoid farther displeasure."

Two of Oxford’s "literary" letters were published in 1571 (1572 (New style)) and 1573. The first of these was written in Latin as a dedicatory epistle to Bartholomew Clerke's Latin translation of Baldassare Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano (The Courtier), while the second, written in English with accompanying verses, was an epistle to Thomas Bedingfield's English translation of Cardanus' Comfort (from the Latin of De consolatione libri tres by the Italian mathematician and physician Girolamo Cardano). The latter book, published at Oxford’s command, has sometimes been called “Hamlet’s book” because of several close verbal and philosophical parallels between it and Shakespeare’s play, particularly a passage on the unsavoriness of old men’s company, to which Hamlet seems to refer in his satirical banter with Polonius (re: plum-tree gum, plentiful lack of wit, most weak hams, etc.), as well a passage with remarkable similarities to Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy.{fact}

Sample poems attributed to Oxford

Popular culture

• 1943 Leslie Howard's classic anti-Nazi film, Pimpernel Smith, features several speeches by the protagonist "Horatio" Smith, a professor of archaeology at Cambridge, concerning Oxford as the true writer of Shakespeare's plays. The movie plays on the well-documented Nazi-interest in Shakespeare; in the movie, the claim made by Smith counterparts the principal Nazi character's assertion that Shakespeare was in fact German.
• 2001 Oxford is one of the primary characters in Amy Freed's play The Beard of Avon.
• 2003 Oxford and the Shakespeare authorship question are central to the plot of Sarah Smith's novel Chasing Shakespeares, which she also adapted into a play.
• 2005 The YA novel Shakespeare's Secret by Elise Broach is centered on Oxford and the authorship question.
• 2007 The Oxfordian theory is present in Jennifer Lee Carrell's thriller Interred With Their Bones.
• 2010 In March, Roland Emmerich began filming Anonymous, starring Rhys Ifans and Vanessa Redgrave, which posits in cinematic terms how Edward de Vere's writings came to be attributed to William Shakespere of Stratford.

Footnotes

1. “Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford”, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 15th ed. Web site accessed 7 Oct 2010.
2. Matus 1994, p. 15
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/oxford/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8380000/8380564.stm
4. Nelson 2004 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFNelson2004 (help)
5. http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/flashbks/shakes/beth.htm paragraph 42: Quote from Dictionary of National Biography: "Puttenham and Meres reckon him among 'the best for comedy' in his day; but, although he was a patron of players, no specimens of his dramatic productions survive."
6. "Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford". Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. 2007. Retrieved 31 August 2007.
7. Satchell, Michael (24 July 2000). "Hunting for good Will: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?". U.S. News. Retrieved 31 August 2007. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
8. McMichael, George and Edgar M. Glenn.Shakespeare and his Rivals: A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy. Odyssey Press, 1962. p. 159.
9. Nelson 2004, p. 151 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFNelson2004 (help)
10. Niederkorn, William S.William S.Niederkorn, The Shakespeare Code, and Other Fanciful Ideas From the Traditional Camp,,New York Times, 30 August 2005.;He or Didn’t He? That Is the Question,New York Timeshttp://doubtaboutwill.org/signatories/notable
11. The National Archives C 142/136/12, WARD 8/13; Green, Maria Giannina, "The Fall of the House of Oxford", Brief Chronicles: Volume 1 (2009), pp. 49-122. URL: www.briefchronicles.com; Paul, Christopher, "A Crisis of Scholarship: Misreading the Earl of Oxford", The Oxfordian, Vol. 9 (2006), pp. 91-112.
12. The National Archives PROB 11/46, ff. 174-6
13. The National Archives PROB 11/52, f. 105
14. Morant, Philip, The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex (1748) ii, p. 328
15. Dewar, Mary. Sir Thomas Smith: A Tudor Intellectual in Office, p. 77
16. Hughes, Stephanie Hopkins. "Shakespeare's Tutor, Sir Thomas Smith (1513-1577): The Oxfordian, 3 (2000): 19-44
17. Strype, John. The Life of Sir Thomas Smith. (1698). New York: Franklin Burt, 1977. p 57
18. Nelson 24
19. The National Archives C 142/136/12. For modern spelling transcripts of this and other primary source documents referenced in this article, see http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/documents.html
20. The National Archives SP 12/26/50
21. Nelson p. 25
22. British Library MS Lansdowne 6/54, f. 135
23. Charlton Ogburn, The Mystery of William Shakespeare, 1984, pgs. 384-393
24. "Bulbeck, Edward (BLBK558E)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
25. Wood, Anthony, Athenae Oxonienses, ed. Philip Bliss (1813-20), iii, p. 178
26. Foster, Joseph (1889), Register of Gray's Inn: Admissions 1521-1669, col. 36
27. Nelson, pp. 43, 45
28. Ward, p. 14
29. The National Archives KB 9/619(part 1)/13
30. May, Stephen W."The Poems of Edward de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford and of Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex", Studies in Philology (Early Winter 1980), LXXVII, #5, 8.
31. May, Ibid, 9.
32. The dedications are reprinted in Katherine V. Chiljan, Book Dedications to the Earl of Oxford, 1994.
33. Huntington Library HAP o/s Box 3(19)
34. Essex Record Office D/DRg 2/24
35. Charlton Ogburn Jr. The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Myth and the Reality Dodd, Mead & Co.,1984, p. 716
36. The National Archives C 66/1090, mm. 29-30
37. Talbot Papers, Vol. F, f. 79
38. Segar, William, The Book of Honor and Armes (New York: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1975) pp. 94-6, 99-100
39. The National Archives 31/3/27
40. Ogburn, pp. 571-575
41. Bibliotheque Nationale 15973, ff. 387v-392v
42. Archivo General de Simancas, Leg. 835, ff. 121-4; Paris Archives K.1447.130; Paris Archives K.1448.49
43. Archivo General de Simancas, Leg. 835, ff. 121-4
44. Ogburn,pp.638-641
45. Paris Archives K.1561
46. ^ Paris Archives K.1563.122
47. Paris Archives K.1562, K.1563.72
48. HMC Rutland, i, p. 150
49. ^ British Library MS Cotton App 47, f. 7
50. Lambeth Palace MS 647, f. 123
51. Cecil Papers 31/45
52. The National Archives E 403/2597, ff. 104v-105
53. Ward
54. "Oxford and Shakespeare". Authorshipstudies.org. Retrieved 30 July 2009.
55. Folger Library MX X.d.30(42)
56. The National Archives SP 14/2/63, f. 160; The National Archives C 66/1612, mbs. 27-28
57. The National Archives E 403/2598, part I, f. 27v
58. The National Archives C 142/286/165
59. London Metropolitan Archive P79/JN1/21, f. 197v
60. English Reports, Vol. 77 (Edinburgh: William Green & Sons, 1907), pp. 1235-52; English Reports, Vol. 21, pp. 485-9
61. The Poems of Edward de Vere
62. "Oxford Letters(oxlets)". Socrates.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 30 July 2009.
63. Chambers, Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 4, p. 334, cxxx.
64. Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies' Library, Vol. IV, #19 (1872)
65. Steven W. May wrote in 2004: 'this whimsical love lyric may not be Oxford's at all. It is attributed to the Earl only in a Bodleian Library manuscript anthology that dates from the mid 1580s.' Neither Looney nor Grosart were aware, however, that another text of the poem is ascribed to an unidentified "R.W" in a British Library Manuscript that is contemporary with the Bodleian anthology but somewhat more dependable in oth texts and attributions to De Vere's poems. Oxford may have written, "If women could be fair", but the evidence is inconclusive' (May, 2004:223/299)
66. Hope & Holston 2009, p. 166
67. Burt 2005, pp. 442–445
68. Chasing Shakespeares. SarahSmith.com.
69. Shapiro & 2010 (2) harvnb error: no target: CITEREFShapiro2010_(2) (help)
70. Anonymous at the Internet Movie Database

References

• Beebee, Thomas O. (1999), ShakespeareEpistolary fiction in Europe, 1500-1850, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521622752
• Burt, Richard (2005), "Shakespeare Goes Heil-lywood", in Hodgdon, Barbara; Worthen, William B. (eds.), A companion to Shakespeare and performance theatre, Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 442–45, ISBN 978-1-405-11104-1
• Carroll, D. Allen (2004), "Reading the 1592 Groatsworth attack on Shakespeare", Tennessee Law Review, 72, Tennessee Law Review Association: 277–294
• Chambers, E. K. (2009) , The Elizabethan Stage, Volume 2, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-199-56749-2
• Elliott, Ward E. Y.; Valenza, Robert J. (2004), "Oxford by the Numbers: What Are the Odds That the Earl of Oxford Could Have Written Shakespeare's Poems and Plays?" (PDF), The Tennessee Law Review, 72, Tennessee Law Review Association: 323–452
• "Edward deVere", Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1974
• Hardin, Craig (1934), "Hamlet's Book", The Huntington Library Bulletin (6), Huntington Library: 17–34 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Hope, Warren; Holston, Kim R. (2009), , The Shakespeare controversy: an analysis of the authorship theories, McFarland, ISBN 978-0-786-43917-1 {{citation}}: |chapter-url= missing title (help); Check |chapter-url= value (help); Missing pipe in: |chapter-url= (help)
• Matus, Irvin L. (1994), Shakespeare, in fact, Continuum Publishing, ISBN 978-0-8264-0624-8}}
• May, Steven W. (1980), "The Poems of Edward DeVere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford and of Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex", Studies in Philology, vol. 77, no. 5, University of North Carolina Press {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• May, Steven W. (1991), The Elizabethan courtier poets: the poems and their contexts, University of Missouri Press, ISBN 978-0-826-20749-4
• May, Steven W. (2004), "The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford as poet and playwright", Tennessee Law Review, 72, Tennessee Law Review Association: 221–254
• Nelson, Alan H (2003), Monstrous Adversary: the life of Edward de Vere,17th Earl of Oxford, Liverpool University Press, ISBN 978-0-85323-678-8
• Nelson, Alan H. (2004), "Stratford Si! Essex No!", Tennessee Law Review, 72 (1), University of Tennessee: 149–171
• Nelson, Alan H (2004), "Edward deVere", Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press
• Niederkorn, William S. (10 February 2001), "A Historic Whodunit: If Shakespeare Didn't, Who Did?", New York Times Times, New York Times
• Paul, Christopher (2006), "A Crisis of Scholarship: Misreading the Earl of Oxford", The Oxfordian, 91: 91–112
• Pearson, Daphne (2005), Edward de Vere (1550-1604): The Crisis and Consequences of Wardship, Ashgate Publishing Ltd., ISBN 978-0-75465-088-1
• Peck, Dwight (1978), "Raleigh, Sidney, Oxford, and the Catholics, 1579", Notes and Queries(new Series), 23 (nos.5-6): 427–431 {{citation}}: |issue= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Peltonen, Markku (2003), The duel in early modern England: civility, politeness, and honour, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-82062-2
• Schoenbaum, S. (1991), Shakespeare’s Lives, 2nd ed., Clarendon, ISBN 978-0-198-18618-2
• Shapiro, James (2010), Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?, UK edition: Faber and Faber (US edition: Simon & Schuster), ISBN 978-0-571-23576-6 (978-1-4165-4162-2) {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Shapiro, James (2010 (2)). "Alas, poor Shakespeare: Conspiracy theories about the authorship of his plays have gone mainstream". Los Angeles Times. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |year= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |day= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
• Shapiro, Michael (2009), "Early (Pre-1590) Boy Companies and their Acting Venues", in Dutton, Richard (ed.), The Oxford handbook of early modern theatre, Oxford University Press, pp. 120–135, ISBN 978-0-199-28724-6
• Ward, Bernard M (1928), The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, 1550-1604: From Contemporary Documents., John Murray

External links

• De Vere's Patronage of Theater: Patrons and Performances Web Site
• Index entry for Edward de Vere at Poets' Corner
• Elizabethan Authors—Poems and Lyrics of Edward de Vere

v t e Shakespeare authorship question
A series on alternative authorship theories for the works of William Shakespeare
Overview	History of the Shakespeare authorship question Shakespeare attribution studies Is Shakespeare Dead? Declaration of Reasonable Doubt
Theories	Baconian Crollalanza Derbyite Florio Lanier Marlovian Nevillean Oxfordian Prince Tudor Shaykh Zubayr
Candidates	List of Shakespeare authorship candidates Francis Bacon Emilia Lanier Christopher Marlowe Henry Neville William Stanley Edward de Vere
Proponents	Joseph Adler Mark Anderson Babette Babich Delia Bacon Ros Barber Charles Wisner Barrell Charles Beauclerk Alden Brooks Charles Champlin Jeffery Donaldson Ignatius L. Donnelly Bert Fields George Greenwood Joseph C. Hart Calvin Hoffman Derek Jacobi Richard Kennedy Abel Lefranc J. Thomas Looney Sandra Day O'Connor Charlton Ogburn Charlton Greenwood Ogburn John Orloff Orville Ward Owen John Denham Parsons Prince Philip Michael Rubbo William Rubinstein Mark Rylance Henry Seymour Joseph Sobran John Paul Stevens Roger Stritmatter Mark Twain Bernard Mordaunt Ward Alexander Waugh Walt Whitman James Wilde Robin Williams (writer)

Template:Persondata

• Use dmy dates from October 2010
• English poets
• People of the Tudor period
• Lord Great Chamberlains
• Earls in the Peerage of England
• Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge
• Oxfordian theory of Shakespearean authorship
• English dramatists and playwrights
• British poets
• British writers
• 1550 births
• 1604 deaths
• Prisoners in the Tower of London