Wrong about Shakespeare
Sir: In Lloyd Evans’s review of Soul of the Age by Jonathan Bate (Arts, 1 November) he declares that ‘all dons’ are potentially bores because they ‘know too much about too little’. In other words, there is ‘too little’ of interest in the life of the actor from Stratfordon-Avon and anything one says about him is ‘too much’. I have just finished reading Brenda James’s The Truth Will Out (written with William D. Rubinstein and published in 2005) and her newly published Henry Neville and the Shakespeare Code and I am surprised that academics are still wasting their time on William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon when there is so much to find out about Henry Neville of Billingbeare, whom Brenda James proved in 2005 to be the true poet.
This is not just another ‘conspiracy theory’. James decoded the dedication to the sonnets and found the words ‘the wise thorp hid thy poet’ and ‘Henry Nevell writer’. Having never heard of Henry Nevell, she went on to research the name and found a man whose birth and death dates were almost identical to Shakespeare’s, and clear documentary evidence to show that Henry Neville’s life experiences, political views and character fit very closely those of the man who wrote the plays and poetry. The source of Shakespeare’s erudition has always been a mystery, but Neville was well known at Oxford university for being a brilliant scholar. His knowledge of European languages, three years spent touring Europe and stint as ambassador to France would offer a reason why the plays display such a detailed knowledge of European literature, towns and politics.
Perhaps most telling of all, he was imprisoned, together with the Earl of Southampton, for two years in the Tower of London, which explains many of the sonnets and why after 1601 ‘Shakespeare’ suddenly started writing tragedies.
M. Lewis
Sydney, Australia
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