Shakespeare/de Vere: remote links to nuclear, political lies
With respect to the wishes of the founder of this forum, I'll indicate some links to nuke lies, though perhaps I should claim a prize for the remotest link yet.
The two links that strike me are
[1] The small groups of 'experts' who will not debate the issue. Obviously many people have noticed this sort of thing - 'knowledge islands', 'editors as gatekeepers' illustrate the sort of thing. The Shakespeare case is important in removing the present-day element almost entirely. Hardly anyone now alive has a vested interest in the plays or the people or the properties. We're talking of events 450 years ago. And yet the impulse of 'experts' to keep the topic in-house is almost irresistible. In this longevity it of course differs from the 'nuke' issues.
[2] Another link is via the corrupting effect that Jews have had on the 'west'. Most of the nuclear issues were Jewish promotions. Another of their movements, as documented by Kevin MacDonald, is anti-white, and one of the facets of that movement is the denial of the importance of intelligence and creativity. As far as I know, all the main opponents of IQ/race links are Jewish. Thus the idea that an uneducated man from a remote country area could intuit knowledge, even of arcane subjects such as law, is pretended to be credible. And this 'PC' attitude helps underpin the 'Shaxper' myth. In its turn, this helps deprive English-speaking people of insights into the plays, which are more or less incomprehensible without the background. This is both personal, the life of de Vere, and literary and cultural.
Some notes on the film 'Anonymous'
So far as I know this is the first film to treat de Vere as 'Shakespeare' - certainly the first with full scale VFX - despite the disclaimer that it's 'entirely a work of fiction...' maybe reinforced by Sony's make.believe tag. Derek Jacobi (modern day theatre orator, shown linking to the past) and Mark Rylance (plays an Elizabethan leading actor) are known to me as Oxfordians. I don't know about the Redgrave mother and daughter (both playing Elizabeth), or Rhys Ifans (de Vere), though presumably they may have some sympathy with the idea.
This film presents some known aspects of de Vere's life, and weaves a plot from them, though much of the detail is conjectural. For example, de Vere was known to have killed a man lurking behind the arras - this film uses the incident to force a marriage on de Vere. Another example is a final scene showing Ben Jonson (played by Sebastian Armesto) recovering leather-bound parchment MSs from a metal trunk after they survived the fire of 1613 that burned down The Globe. There is little real evidence (as far as I know) for either joint event, but in each case two puzzles are combined in one filmic solution.
Burford, the writer and speaker now renamed Beauclerk, is an advocate of the Elizabeth/ de Vere incest theory - a theory which has caused a serious rift in the Oxfordian movement. Perhaps I won't give the detail here. John Orloff is credited with the script, but I don't remember any historical or literary advisors in the credit list.
Since 54 years of de Vere's life have to be encompassed, the casting people picked two actors of different ages for several of the parts. I'm tempted to say the sets of halves didn't look very similar - but then, perhaps many people don't resemble their younger selves very closely. William Cecil (I think I'm right in saying) is shown as so old that the make up and prosthetic people only needed to work on actor.
'Anonymous' is worth watching for its technical skill, not just because it's pathbreaking as a piece of 'revisionism'.
I'll just comment on a few aspects---
** The Spanish Armada, part of the Spanish War, occurred when de Vere was about 38. This war had an impoverishing effect on Britain (and no doubt Spain). Many parts of Britain had famine. If de Vere wrote the plays, there was a good deal of patriotic material aimed against Spain. There's a very good essay by Capt. Ward on this subject, which the 'merrie England' types seem not to know of. When the Armada failed, these propagandist plays ceased.
** De Vere is believed to have been paid by Elizabeth, essentially as a propagandist; two plays per year being required. At least this story was reported by one of the early writers on Shakespeare as being current in the writer's time.
** The name 'William Shakespeare' is attributed to a Warwickshire travelling player type, just as in the traditional version. In the film, he's shown as unable to write, and to spontaneously giving his name as author of Henry V, since Ben Jonson was unwilling to come forward. The usual Oxfordian view is that the name was made up, both 'Will' and 'Shakespeare' being in some sense synonymous with poetry. Under this version, Shaxper, who lived in Stratford-on-Avon, and was helpfully illiterate, was located as a substitute for de Vere, who lived in Starford, East London. Earls were not supposed to stoop to writing. And Christopher Sly was de Vere's commentary.
** It would not surprise me if Shaxper was some sort of war profiteer in food; hence the sack of grain and his expensive monument. Maybe.
** The film is a bit constricted - these events occurred when the entire world was opening, after Columbus's 1493 return, fifty years before de Vere's birth. Colonisation of the USA was beginning. Several empires were starting (including Russia's). The Italian Renaissance was long established. There were wars throughout Europe; with more to follow. De Vere's education (his tutors are faithfully listed in the film) included what are now called 'the classics'. Not much of this is really shown or implied in the film - Cecil isn't shown with his maps and information about ships, Walsingham isn't shown spying. De Vere's sporting prowess is hinted at only through fencing. Nor is de Vere shown at Cambridge, or with lawyers, or at war, or with his companies of actors. Of course all these things would be difficult to film!
** Many events which were recent at the time of 'Shakespeare' aren't put into the film - possibly there simply wasn't time. Henry VIII gets a few mentions as Elizabeth's father, but his wives aren't mentioned. Nor is Henry VII, against whom de Vere had a special animus. There's no mention of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
** De Vere's wealth, and its disappearance, is part of the de Vere life and legend. Much seems to have vanished during his minority, and much when he was touring Europe. I've never seen a convincing explanation of the underlying economic forces which one assumes underpinned the transfer of wealth - mostly (I think) ownership of land and property, but also some Tudor monopolies (as per the 'tin letters'). It's possible the introduction of interest, made legal by Henry VIII, had something to do with it.
** Financing: the list of implied 'angels' does NOT include the BBC. The BBC gets a guaranteed few billion a year from the British public, and likes to use this financial muscle in assorted ways never intended by the founders. Perhaps it's unnecessary to say that a project like this - and in fact all the plays need a serious revisionist treatment - received no BBC funding; only propaganda and low-grade material gets their money.