Complete knowledge about anything whatsoever is unattainable. There is always the possibility that more and better knowledge will be achieved in the future. Theories are the tools we use to systematize the knowledge at hand, thereby to facilitate the searching for more knowledge. As time goes on it becomes necessary to replace old theories by new ones that are in better agreement with the new facts that have accumulated. Theories play an important part also in the world of literature. We have noticed already that a certain theory about Hamlet can augment our understanding of the tragedy. Every performance that we watch will thus be more rewarding.

From this point of view there are superior theories and inferior theories. For ordinary theatergoers and watchers of TV-performances of Shakespeare the Stratford theory is of little value. It does not add to the understanding of Shakespeare’s plays anything other than what we can learn from general descriptions about theaters and life in England in the late 16th and early 17th century.

A good theory, from a scientific point of view, is one that fits as many known facts as possible into a common system. If several theories do the same thing, the simplest is held to be the best. Experience tells us that theories of this quality are valuable aids in the subsequent search for knowledge. Also from this viewpoint the Stratford theory appears to be rather worthless. The Derby theory, on the other hand, has guided me to discover that the German play Prinz Hamlet is in fact the Ur-Hamlet that was considered missing and lost forever (see "First night of Hamlet").

As a matter of fact, it is the same Derby theory that has guided me to the theory about the cause of Hamlet’s delay (see "Why does Hamlet tarry?"). This implies that the Derby theory will be useful also from the viewpoint of any spectator or Shakespeare fan. Considering all this, it seems justified to examine the subject of the theory, the 6th Earl of Derby. We have reason to expect that facts about the Earl will provide us with more of a background to Shakespeare’s plays.

The Stanley family had two castles in Lancashire, Lathom, about five miles east of Ormskirk, and Knowsly, about eight miles south of Ormskirk (now being the outskirts of Liverpool). The family also had a chapel in the church of Ormskirk, and residences in Chester and London. The Chester residence is extant and consists of an ordinary dwelling-house, called "The Stanley Palace" (above). The London residence was a house on Channon Row in Westminster not far from the Houses of Parliament. The Lathom castle was leveled to the ground in the 17th century, but the family chapel, where the 6th Earl of Derby was buried, is still to be seen in the Ormskirk church. On the Knowsly estate there are now many buildings, one of which is the residence of the present Earl of Derby. William Stanley probably spent most of his childhood at the two castles with occasional visits to Ormskirk and Chester. Several subsequent Earls of Derby have been noted for their northern dialect ("Yorkish") in adult life. It is likely that William Stanley, like other Lancastrians, spoke the dialect as a child and even--in a modified manner--later in his life. In 1572, William was enrolled at St. John’s College at the Oxford University together with both of his brothers. He may have studied Law at Gray’s Inn in London after the university years, because it is known that reservation for him had been made already in 1563.

The students at St. John’s College were known to practice amateur theatricals, and William Stanley may well have taken part in these. It is therefore likely that he tried his hand at writing plays already during his college years.

In 1582, at the age of 21, Sir William sat out for a four-year sojourn on the Continent for the purposes of study. The first stage of this journey covered several places in France, where he and his tutor, Richard Lloyd stayed for almost a year. After France, the couple visited a number of countries, but there is no reliable documentation about the course of events. All we have is a versified narrative about "Sir William Stanley’s Travels" (see Appendix below), which mentions Spain, Italy, Germany, Egypt, Palestine, Turkey and a few other countries. Apart from the fact that Greece and Denmark are missing, the countries mentioned tally with those that are familiar to the author of Shakespeare’s plays. It is quite possible that young Sir William had indeed stood on the bank of the Bosporus wondering at the ice-cold water incessantly flowing in one direction only. We have noticed previously that this sight is used in Othello, as a metaphor.

As a member of the nobility, it was fairly natural for William Stanley to obtain a commission. As an officer he may have participated in the military operations in the Low Countries that preceded the attack of the Spanish Armada in 1588. At least later in his life he participated in certain military expeditions. It is tempting to fancy that the dialogue in Henry V (IV:1) between the disguised King and two privates is based on the author’s own talk with subordinates on the eve of some battle. To me, as a war veteran, the dialogue smells of first-hand experience.

Sir William’s father, the 4th Earl of Derby, and his elder brother, Lord Strange, were both in turn patrons of a troupe of actors. Theatrical performances were frequent on the family castles. Young William ought to have had ample possibilities to watch the procedure of a lord receiving a troupe of players in his castle. As we have noticed previously, this is the only form of behind-the-scenes theatricals that is depicted in Shakeseare’s plays (viz. in Hamlet and The Taming of the Shrew).

William’s father died in 1593 and was succeeded as Earl of Derby by his oldest son, Ferdinando, Lord Strange. With the Earldom followed the hereditary sovereignty of the Isle of Man. Ferdinando appointed his brother William governor of the island-kingdom, that had belonged to the Stanley family since 1404. Although a kingdom of its own, the Isle of Man was subordinate to the monarch of England. Out of respect for the latter, the sovereigns of I.O.M. usually waived from using the royal title. So did also Ferdinando, William and their successors.

Already the following year, 1594, Ferdinando suddenly died and William inherited the Earldom. He thus became the 6th Earl of Derby and supposedly also the King of the Isle of Man. He appointed Sir Thomas Gerrard (and later Peter Leigh) governor of "his" kingdom. But soon there arose legal disputes between the Earl and Ferdinando’s three daughters over the possession of the Isle of Man. It was probably this legal case that caused the newly fledged Earl to register himself at Lincoln’s Inn, one of the four legal societies in London that trained their students to practice at bar. This brings to mind the evident interest for jurisprudence and things juridical that is to be found in so many of Shakespeare’s plays. The same interest is manifest also in the high number of technical terms from the world of law and jurisprudence in the plays.

After William Stanley had become an Earl, the old Lord Burghley (1520-98) accepted that his granddaughter Elizabeth de Vere (1575-1627) became engaged to the bachelor Earl, who was already 34 years old. The fiancée was only 19, and the love affair is thought to have begun at an entertainment at Elvetham Manor in Hampshire in 1591 (Chambers, Vol. I, p. 358). At that time Shakespeare wrote the play Romeo and Juliet. Guess if it was written with inspiration! The engaged couple married in January 1595 and the wedding was celebrated with a festivity at Greenwich Castle in the presence of Queen Elizabeth. A comedy called A Midsummer Night’s Dream had been written especially for the occasion and was, in spite of the season, performed in the open. The author’s inspiration had certainly not flagged.

The play-within-the-play that is included in MND is a travesty of the kind of amateur theatricals that the Chester artisans used to practice on the streets of their town annually about midsummer. William Stanley supposedly had watched these performances when he as a child was allowed to follow his parents to their Chester residence.

On May 26, 1601, Will Derby was dubbed Knight of the Garter by Queen Elizabeth at a ceremony in Windsor Castle. Shakespeare’s comedy, Merry Wives of Windsor, was written about this time, and it is known that the play was acted before Her Majesty. Lord Derby probably wrote it in acknowledgment of his new knighthood and naturally inserted a number of allusions to the Order of the Garter, such as the following:

Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,

And, Honi soit qui mal y pense write,

Here he even incorporated the very device of the Order: Hon(n)i soit qui mal y pense, ’shame on him that thinks badly of it’.

In the 1590’s there were two persons in London that have come to be connected with the authorship of Shakespeare. An outline of Derby’s life cannot pass them over in silence. Their names are Thomas Kyd (1558-94) and Christopher Marlowe (1564-93). After their premature deaths a number of plays have been attributed to each of them. Although none of them had any connection to Northern England, their plays contain Yorkish words just about as frequently as does the Shakespearean plays. Some scholars have noticed that Marlowe’s usage is essentially identical with that of the young Shakespeare.

According to A.L. Rowse, Marlowe and Kyd shared lodgings in 1591. In the same year they are reported to have "written plays" for a lord who would have been the patron of a troupe of players. Kyd was known for his flowing hand, but it does not emerge from the sources whether he and Marlowe made fair copies of plays written by the lord or they actually composed plays themselves, on behalf of the lord. Unfortunatelly, we are left to guess who this lord was. Kyd did not reveal the name even when he was placed under arrest and desperately wrote a letter to the Lord Privy Seal in hope of deliverance. It looks like the lord was extremely keen on his anonymity. Obviously, here is a domain for further research.

As for Lord Derby, we know for certain that in 1599 he wrote plays for the common players. This is stated in two letters by George Fenner, as quoted in the essay titled "First night of Ur-Hamlet". We may infer that Derby used one or more pen names in order to conceal his own name, a name that should not be sullied with something as unbecoming as plays for the populace. He could of course have used the names Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe just as well as the name William Shakespeare. Kyd and Marlowe would not have protested. They were both dead when their names occurred in print.

Four years after Fenner had taken his soundings about Derby’s attitude to running for the succession, Queen Elizabeth died. In the meantime Derby had done nothing at all in order to be nominated successor. Ascending the throne in 1603 was instead Derby’s third cousin, James VI of Scotland with his Queen Anna. The latter was born Princess of Denmark as a daughter of King Frederick II. As we have seen in Chapter 4, she may have played the part of Ophelia, or of the Queen, in Prinz Hamlet on Kronborg Castle in 1585. If so, she would probably have acted opposite William Stanley. It had been a rather childish play with a fictional plot that included attempted murder of a lawful pretender to the throne. Now that plot had turned into dead earnest. Anna’s consort could easily begin to nurse some kind of a plot, knowing that there was another lawful pretender alive. Could he really trust his third cousin to have waived the crown for good? Would it perhaps be safer to let him disappear?

Such thoughts must have been circling in Derby’s head as well. Could he trust King James to let him keep this head safely on his shoulders in all weathers? Derby was certainly not at a loss about what to do. Had he not written already in Q1 (II:2): "The play’s the thing, Wherein I’le catch the conscience of the King."? The play Hamlet was excellently well suited for exerting an influence on King James. The moral of the drama is that something unfortunate will happen to a king who tries to murder his co-pretender. And the co-pretender of the play, Prince Hamlet, demonstrates clearly that he does not covet the crown.

The First Quarto of Hamlet was published in 1603, the year of James’s ascension on the throne. The next year came the Second Quarto. It seems probable that King James read the drama and perhaps also watched a performance of it, since his consort, Queen Anna, must have been keenly interested in this play so closely linked to her native country--to say the least. She would naturally have told the King who this shady "Shakespeare" really was. It must have been an earnest eye-opener for King James. The stratagem to influence a person by means of a play had been practiced in the theater by Hamlet in Prinz Hamlet in 1585. Now it was 1603 and reality had caught up with fiction. The old stratagem came in handy. This is another striking resemblance between Hamlet and the author of Hamlet, Earl Derby. Both used plays as a means to influence people mentally.

Only a couple of years elapsed before the stratagem was practiced once more. This time it was done in amplissima forma in a new play called The Tragedy of Macbeth. The setting was located in King James’s homeland, Scotland. The play is about a man who commits murder in order to become a king. As a concequence he soon finds himself forced to commit more murders. The series of murders becomes the ruin of him. King James and Queen Anna most certainly watched this play that was so obviously addressed to them. The Tragedy of Macbeth is the only Shakespearian play with a setting in Scotland.

Lord Derby’s life was spared, and no attempts on his life are reported. Derby survived James for 17 years. He had three sons, James (1607-51), who became the 7th Earl of Derby, Robert (1608-33), who was buried in the Chelsea Old Church, and Charles Henry (1610-29). During the adult life of Derby several hundreds of plays were written and performed in England. Most of them seem to have been printed and the majority is extant. Apart from the plays bearing the names of Shakespeare and Marlowe, there has never been published any orderly investigation of the linguistic peculiarities of all these plays--purportedly written by a number of playwrights. It is much too early to form any idea about Derby’s share in all these plays. Lord Derby died in September 1642, at age 82, and in the same month the theaters in London were closed. A long period without theatrical performances and playwrights began.

However in 1623, someone had seen to it that some of the best plays--and many others--should go down to posterity. This year the so-called First Folio was published. The book contained 36 of the plays that have been labeled as Shakespeare’s. The edition was expensive and copies were sold at the high price of one pound. It seems unlikely that any commercial publisher should calculate with getting a profit from such an enterprise. Many of the plays were available already as cheap printed books, and being 20 to 30 years old they were hardly in great demand. As far as we know, the author had not been a topic of literary comment during the preceding seven years. E.K. Chambers lists less than ten performances of Shakespearian plays between 1616 and 1623. It was the publication of the First Folio that caused a renewed demand for performances of the plays, not the other way round. Just before 1623 Shakespeare was all but forgotten. In this situation it seems likely that the First Folio was published on Derby’s own initiative and at his own expense. Certainly the author was the one who wanted these almost forgotten plays to get another chance. The printer probably got a bunch of carelessly corrected manuscripts and some pieces of blurb signed by a number of suitable persons. He also got a copperplate portrait of the putative author, "William Shakespeare".

This portrait is the only one that can be associated with the author of Shakespeare’s works (irrespective of his identity). It has no marked likeness with the bust of the actor Shakspere in the Trinity Church at Stratford-upon-Avon. This bust, in its turn, is the only portrait associated with the actor. The bust was made a short time after the death of Shakspere, and it was apparently lifelike enough to be accepted by the friends and the widow. It shows a face with a fixed smile and a generally smug expression. Nothing in this face reminds of intellectual interests. It is the face that we expect to find on a second rate actor or a crafty real estate dealer. Shakspere was both.

Whence then the totally different portrait in the First Folio? Now, with the answer book at hand, the question can be answered. The answer book in this case is an authentic portrait of the 6th Earl of Derby. When we compare the engraving with the Derby portrait we find that the mouth is Derby’s, the nose is Derby’s and the eyebrows are Derby’s. It looks like the engraver has been working with the portrait as a model. He has tried to imagine how the head would look like without the hat and the chin without the beard. He has simplified the collar and the ornamentation of the dress, but he has retained the broad outline. The angles between the face, the arms, the trunk and the plane of the picture seem to have been transferred unchanged from the painting to the copperplate. Naturally the printed picture became revised in relation to the painting and the copperplate.

With recourse to a number of portraits of contemporary Englishmen one can easily conclude that no other person looked so much like the engraving, as did Lord Derby.

The First Folio with its 500 or 1,000 copies seem to have lasted almost nine years until it was out of print. In 1632 the Second Folio was issued. The text was modernized, e.g. by making the letters u and v correspond to two different sounds, just as they do to-day. This change alone meant an enormous amount of work. It would have been much cheaper to follow the First Folio slavishly. Nobody would have grumbled, and the enterprise would have yielded a better profit. Instead the publisher seems to have been rather fastidious. As James Greenstreet has noted, not only errors have been corrected, there are also numerous amendments that indicate a scrupulous perusal followed by a real weighing of words. Compare for instance the wording in F1 and F2 of the following lines from Romeo and Juliet (I:5):

____ F1: _ O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

____ F2: _ O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

It is hard to imagine any other than the author to be that particular about single words in a play 40 years old. Of course it was the septuagenarian Earl himself, who proofread and financed the unnecessarily expensive Second Folio in 1632. Who else would have cared?

In this chapter, we have noted a few milestones from the life of Will Derby that are associated with the theory of his identity with the author called Shakespeare. So far, no life of the 6th Earl of Derby has been published.

Those who want to know more about him are recommended to read the books on the Stanley family and the book by Titherley.

By regarding the name "Shakespeare" as a pen name for Derby, it becomes possible to establish the usual type of connection between author and work. Such a connection is an absolute matter of course when we are dealing with e.g. Henry David Thoreau, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), or Ernest Hemingway. A considerable part of all literary history deals with precisely connections of this kind. Above, we have a foretaste of what an account of the Derby connections will contain when it will eventually be written down. The real Derby study has hardly begun yet.

Derby’s productive period may very well have lasted from 1580 to 1640. The name "William Shakespeare" was used solely during 17 years out of these 60, from 1593 to 1609. After this year the name was printed only on reprints of old plays and on the first quarto of Othello, printed in 1622 but composed some 20 years before. Even during the said 17 years, however, many of Shakespeare’s plays were published anonymously, e.g. Titus Andronicus in 1594, Richard III in 1597 and Henry V in 1600. Derby could of course have written other plays than those now canonized as Shakespeare’s, i.e. Pericles and the 36 plays in the First Folio. He may have published them anonymously or under a pen name other than "Shakespeare". The names of his secretaries would have come in handy for this purpose. The extant manuscript of Sir Thomas More indicates that he employed quite a number of secretaries. With appropriate data processing it will be a piece of cake to sort out the plays written by Derby among all those dating from 1580 to 1640.

Data processing would also be useful as a means to date such texts that cannot be dated with any other method. In short, this is not the end of the history of the real Shakespeare. It is just the end of the beginning. Most of the history remains to be explored.

Bagley, J. J., The Earls of Derby 1485-1985, London 1985.

Chambers, Sir Edmund, The Elizabethan Stage. London 1923.

Draper, Peter, The House of Stanley, Ormskirk 1864.

Freeman, Arthur, Thomas Kyd. Oxford 1967.

Greenstreet, James, "Testimonies against the accepted authorship of Shakespear’s Plays", The Genealogist, Vol.8, p. 141. London 1892.

History of the House of Stanley, Liverpool 1801.

Pollard, William, The Stanleys of Knowsley, 1868.

Rowse, A. L., Christopher Marlowe, London 1964.

Sir William Stanley’s Garland, Brit. Museum Cat. No. 1078.

Titherley, A. W., Shakespeare’s Identity, Winchester 1952.

Sir William Stanley’s Travels

In Lancashire there liv’d a Lord.

A worthy Lord and a man of fame,

Whose dwelling was at Latham-Hall,

And the Earl of Derby call’d by name.

He had two sons of noble race,

Which brought their father great delight,

- - -

The youngest was called Sir William Stanley,

A noble valiant minded man.

But as it happened on a day,

Sir William fell upon his knee,

Desiring leave of his father dear,

Some foreign countries for to see.

- - -

Then first Sir William travell’d to France,

To learn the French tongue and to dance;

- - -

And then Sir William would travel to Spain,

Ther for to learn the Spanish tongue;

- - -

To Italy then Sir William would go,

To Rome and to High Germany,

- - -

And then to Egypt he took his way,

To view that Court was his intent.

- - -

And took his leave most courteously,

Of the King of Morocco and his nobles all,

Then went to the King of Barbary.

- - -

Into Russia he needs must go,

To visit the Emperor and his Queen.

- - -

And then Sir William he would go,

To Betlehem right speedily,

Likewise to fair Jerusalem,

Where our blessed Saviour Christ did die;

- - -

And then would into Turkey go,

Where he endur’d more miseries,

- - -

And then he would to Greenland go,

Wher he endur’d more misery.

- - -

Then back they all came for Holland,

being joyful of either’s company,

And the captain he took leave of him,

And bid him welcome to Low Country.

- - -

Then he saw ships coming from merry England,

And to Latham-Hall he return’d again.

- - -

The Earl of Derby made Feast,

Which lasted for Months three,

And nobly entertain’d his Guests,

That came to see his son William Stanley.

FINIS