hUMILITY pRESS
P.O. Box 1595  West Tisbury  Mass. 02575

16        SHAKESPEARE’S FAMILY AND ANCESTORS - [The Stratfordian
resentment of Oxfordian “nobility” shows through. This heroic effort to show
farmers and honest tradesmen in their “gentlest” light suggests more an apology
than a testament. It is about as “once-upon-a-time as you can get”.]

20        NOT WITHOUT RIGHT - [The Shakspere “family motto” is a corruption of the
statement made on William Shakspere’s application for his father’s coat of arms:     
’ Non, Sanz Droict’ - The denial was either ignored or got around. Ben Jonson
wrote a funny play about Shaksper, called Sogliardo. It revels in its hapless hero’s
quest for a coat of arms.]

22        THE RISE OF JOHN SHAKESPEARE - [The first assignment in putting the
Stratford Myth back on track is to sanitize Shaksper’s pedigree. All the stops have
been pulled to provide England (and the world) with a glowing legend that rival’s
the film’s (TV series) shameless use of lush scenes and shining faces.]

25        THE ARDENS - [The Forest is still a big place and hard to miss, but to soften up
his readers and television audience Wood makes sure that we know about Mary
Arden, the “poet’s” mother. Not all of the ancestral connections are free of
supposition, but it gets us right smack into the play, As You Like It.]

29        SCHOOL - “…. from around the time when Shakespeare started school….”
[It starts here, a relentless series of references to the education of this likely lad. By
now the Stratford think tank knows that scholar’s on all sides require the Bard to be
both a genius and well-schooled. Wood waltzes through the subject with a
combination of mustabeens and bald statements without any facts to support them.]

47        MY MOTHER GAVE IT ME - [This is covered under Oxblocs as a device in the
hands of a master propagandist - but perhaps Wood has just been deceived by a
master playwright into believing it.]

48        MYTH AND MAGIC - “…. we shouldn’t exaggerate the importance of
books….” [Does this mean that we can ignore Wood’s cramming every page with
the books he claims were systematically inhaled by his hero? Probably not; Wood
has to compete with Shake-speare-Oxford’s use of Sir Thomas Smith’s library from
the age of five (as large as that of Cambridge at the time); Burleigh’s library (some
two thousand volumes); and his own (which included the books that were dedicated
to him.)]

49        SMALL LATIN AND LESS GREEK - “…. persistence of the myth that
Shakespeare must have been an uneducated provincial….” [As opposed to the
myth that he wasn’t? This can be understood by reading carefully between the lines. 
Because of its importance, the First Folio has had much attention. Ben Jonson
was working for the Herberts (Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery) who published
these plays in 1623. There are many reasons why Oxford’s family needed (or
desired) to obscure the authorship. Since there were those that knew, a tongue-in-
cheek approach was indicated. This also applies to the enigmatic woodcut, upon
which we are asked not to look, “but upon the works”. ]

50        “THE END PRODUCT - was a poet who could and did sit down and read a
book or play in Latin - although like most people then and now, he preferred a
translation for speed.” [After softening up his audience he encapsulates what
many will see as the cardinal message of this Grand Guignol. In The paragraphs
above he quietly conflates whatever learning mustabeen available to Shaksper with
that at Bangor (in Wales) and at Harrow.]  “…. remember that Tudor England
was probably the most literary society that had existed in history.” [Well,
perhaps that explains it. These are desperate times for Stratfordians.]

51        CHILD OF THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE - “Shakespeare - was lucky to
be born in a privileged generation - “ [Wrong, wrong, wrong! Everyone, even
Stratfordians, knows that the English Renaissance was Shakespeare’s child - or
more properly, Shake-speare-Oxford was its midwife.]

52        “LEARNING BY ROTE.... offers many rewards, not least a sense of poetry,
rhythm, and refinement - a feel for heightened language.” [Is this Wood’s
explanation for how Shakespeare (the real one) heightened our language? Does he
really believe that his Warwickshire ragamuffin brought the Queen’s English
kicking and screaming into the seventeenth century. Back to Harrow for you, sir.]
and “Filial devotion and civic mindedness: such was the style of Tudor
education.” [Any window into Shaksper’s feelings for his parents is through the
diamond panes of “his” plays; ie: circularities. There is no record of  Shaksper ever
doing anything to help or improve his town, or Shake-speare-Oxford’s city, except
perhaps those friendly court records of wrangling over debts and avoidance of
paying taxes.]

54        “THE SCHOOLROOM - (picture caption) - Here young William - at the age of
nine was introduced to Ovid’s poems by Master Hunt.” [Where is the Bard
when we need him? Did he have a word for an “innocent” lie? Do the Shakespeare
Birthplace Trust, the BBC, and Mr. Wood have the right to be innocent (ie: not
knowing) in a case as important as this? Sonnet Seventy-two suggests: “Unless
you devise some virtuous lie” - What possible good could come from turning a
hopeful assumption into a bald fact?]

56        BEAR WITNESS - “At school Shakespeare also did plays in Latin.” [Well, we
know that Shake-speare-Oxford did.]

57        “GENIUS - IS NOT THE ACCUMULATION OF INFLUENCES - with his
fabulous memory....” [The wee folk are gathering; they now have our author
totally in their power!]

63        OVIDATION – [A possible term for Wood’s process of making the necessary
literary transfusion between Shake-speare-Oxford and Shaksper. Students of the
occult would like to have seen a picture of the “abbreviated signature” assigning
this copy of a sixteenth century Latin Ovid to the latter. One gets a sense of a
contest between Master Hunt and Arthur Golding for job of being Shakespeare’s
Ovid teacher. If, and only if, a “Master Hunt” taught Ovid to Shaksper, he would
have been using translations touched by the hand of the true Bard a decade or so
before.]

64        “SHAKESPEARE LEARNED EARLY TO BE A FOX”- [As opposed to a
Wolfish Earl? Well, maybe a role model for latter-day Stratfordians. This entire
page, ranging through Erasmus, Puritans, Apollo, Christ, Diana, the Virgin Mary,
the Privy Council, and Pericles, makes Midsummer Night’s Dream seem dowdy
indeed. And now he has quietly been promoted to a “bailiff’s son”; next week, a
poet’s license.]

80        WILLIAM SHAKESHAFTE - [Nice to see this oldie brought out again, even
though Wood does not believe it for a minute - just useful to soften up his readers.
Perhaps he realized that the name of this possible school-teacher alter ego for
Shaksper lacked the essential hyphen.]

86        SHAKESPEARE’S FIRST POEM - [Requires us to believe that this “teenager
had obviously read - Hecatompathia or The Passionate Century of Love”. What
he does not tell us is that Thomas Watson’s work was dedicated to Shak-speare-
Oxford in 1582. The libretto that accompanies his attempt to turn Sonnet 145 into
an early love-letter from Shaksper to Anne “hate away” suggests that Wood or his
team have read about this sonnet, but have not been able to absorb the convoluted
analyses of Stratfordian sonneteers such as Vendler or Booth. It is difficult to see
how it could have been the key to one of the world’s most famous shotgun
weddings.]

87        OOPS - [We got ahead of ourselves] “Did the nervous teenage groom recite it to
his pregnant new wife - he would write better - apparently in an
autobiographical way - but there is no more touching or personal poem in all
of is works.” [Well, Michael, shall we compare thee to a….........?]

99        Sara Williams Speaks – in 1586, a priest is drawn and quartered while Shake-
speare-Oxford is judging Mary Queen of Scots. Wood would have us believe that
Sara’s testimony was studied by Shaksper when writing King Lear, which he has us
to understand wasn’t written until 1605-6. What would the punishment have been
back then for playing games with the calendar?

108      OXFORD’S MEN – [.... were not mentioned in Wood’s accounts of Shaksper’s
possible early association with the Queen’s Men. At least he is being honest about
the fact that it is “.... a tale held together by a chain of conjectures: plausible,
suggestive, but no more.” He needs something to allow his poet to have “a deep
knowledge” of their plays - plays by 1587 that had already been written by Shake-
speare-Oxford. Oxford’s men were acting at the time, along with Leicester’s and
Worcester’s. Theatrical groups were identified by their patrons; some patrons such
as Derby and Oxford also worked closely with the groups. As this book oozes on
we will see increasing references to “Shakespeare’s company” - no such thing. The
term is a part of the myth that has grown over time, understandably in admiration
and in wonder, but distinctly evil when being used to brainwash us. But in Wood’s
world there is no Oxford.

109      BACK TO THE MYTH – [.... the title from the previous page. Wood’s
characterization of the Queen’s Men’s plays as old-fashioned and politically
motivated lays bare the grant made to Shake-speare-Oxford in 1586. The
financially challenged earl was paid L1000 a year from secret service funds to write
the equivalent of John Wayne war films to bolster Albion’s morale against the
Spanish. This page, laced with mustabeens and circularities is pure fiction; vis:
”Everything we know suggests….” [!]

118      “LIKE ALL HIS CLASS - Shakespeare wore a sword -“ [This is probably the
least possible of all Wood’s fantasies. He would have had to be a knight, or at least
esquire. His manifest vanity would have made sure he would have let us know.  
But the affrays in Romeo and Juliet are drawn from real street fights between
Shake-speare-Oxford’s men and those of one Knyvett, uncle of one of Elizabeth’s
ladies-in-waiting with whom Oxford had a child. However it looks more like Wood
had to give his guy something with which to defend himself against Shake-speare-
Oxford who was a champion in the lists - and never lost. Or is it that actors just like
to dress up?]

132      THE UNKNOWN ELIZABETHAN – [Like all fairytales pictures are useful. 
The remotest possibility of limning Shaksper is the one on the First Folio. Even that
one has been shown not to be a portrait, but a paste-up of two right eyes and a tunic
of which “the right-hand side of the forepart is obviously the left-hand side of the
back part” and can only be seen as the mask intimated by Ben Johnson in his poem
opposite -]  “This figure that thou here seest put / it was for gentle Shakespeare
cut....”  [Our sympathies - but there are plenty of portraits of Shake-speare-
Oxford out in the real world, one of which was painted over to look like Shaksper
without painting-out the noble ruff or his Boar ring, an Oxford family symbol. Not
to worry, the Stratfordim have found a 1588 portrait of a young man of the same
age as Shaksper, looking somewhat like the above “Droeshout engraving”. It peer’s
pertly out of the book’s pages, giving hope to all those who cheer when they want
to show they believe in fairies.]

147      “PATRONAGE WAS THE KEY - for an ambitious poet.” [The only known
person who could have possibly been seen as a patron for the Bard was The Third
Earl of Southampton to whom Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, and The Sonnets were
dedicated. But there is no record of any contact between him and Shaksper.
Teetering on this one facet of Elizabethan literature is a complete fantasy not only
about on-going financial support, but politically correct (for both his and Wood’s 
times) homosexual love. But one of the reasons that Shake-speare-Oxford was
perpetually broke was because he was the patron of many. His dedications, above,
are the only ones he made for reasons dealt with elsewhere in this dissection.]

148      ON THE SURVIVAL OF LETTERS – [It might be easier to point out that the
scarcity of letters from “Shakespeare” is due to the fact that he either could not or
did not write anything that can not be ascribed to others. The other side of that coin
is that Shake-speare-Oxford wrote many letters that have managed to survive in
books, and which make identifying him as the Bard a piece of cake. No room for
fantasy here.]

150      GOOD ON SEX – [They say nearly everyone fantasizes on this slippery subject,
so try not to be surprised when Wood tries to steer his puppet through Venus and
Adonis, et al with the help of Philip Sidney, Keats, Southwell, and Seamus Heaney.
He manages to mix in calculated mis-understandings of the Burghley-Southampton
connection and why Southwell wrote something for WS (the Southwell-Oxford-
Hackney connection).]

156      PARANOIA – [.... duly assigned to a Marlowe who was “Shakespeare’s first
            great inspiration.” Once upon a time there was an earl who wrote, traveled,
            fought, owned a ship, invested in exploration of the New World, acted in and
            directed plays, and loved a number of women including his Virgin Queen. He also
            had secretaries, including Christopher Marlowe, Anthony Munday, and John Lyly.
            He was certainly capable of sharing ideas, and for him inspiration could be a two-
            way street: try Marlowe’s Come With Me and Be My Love and Ignoto’s (Oxford’s)
            competitive answer, The Passionate Shepherd To His Love. Fairytales are easy
            once you get the facts straight.]

158      FOUR LORD CHAMBERLAINS - “Shakespeare’s patron Lord Hunsdon -
            blunt-spoken – popular.... “ [and busy on the East Marches toward Scotland, as
            was his son, equally busy fortifying the Isle of Wight, with Lord Cobham in
            between; “a choleric domineering baron of the old school - with Puritan affiliations
            - and - no love for the acting profession”. This leaves the Great Lord Chamberlain
            in charge: Shake-speare-Oxford; magical, perhaps, but not a  fairytale.]

160      “IT PROVES HE WAS NOW A LEADING MEMBER - of Hunsdon’s
            company....” [The proof, it seems, comes from a payroll. Since in this fairytale
            Shaksper is also Shake-speare and entitled to all of the literary and theatrical perks
            appurtenant thereto; magnifique! Turn on the house lights and that italicized
            adjective evaporates.]

177      A JOB FOR A YOUNG MAN -  “commissioned to write a series of seventeen
            poems to a young aristocrat....” [Young Wood wades bravely into the Times
            Square of Shakespeariana prepared to interpret its literary geology with no tools
            except his imagination and a bundle of circularities, mustabeens, and Oxblocs. He
            comes up for air briefly with “Most…. would surely agree that they relate to
            real life experience: if they are not autobiographical, it is hard to imagine what
            is.”  But he goes down for the third time with: “Shakespeare fell in love with
            these two people and was shaken by the affair.” We must not blame him for
            heading out on his own. These poems have been cryogenically deconstructed ad
            nauseam by “experts” such as Helen Vendler who is sure they are merely abstract
            exercises. Although their intimate connection with the life and times of Shake-
            speare-Oxford have been well-documented, we are eagerly awaiting a
            comprehensive treatment that will disabuse those made uncomfortable by what
            they have been told is a monument to homosexuality. Anyone who has sons has a
            better-than-average chance of understanding the language of these highly articulate
            stanzas. But Wood’s fantasy will not fly without proof that the project poet was
            “commissioned”. This is simply not commercial grade poetry. By the way, it was
            Shake-speare-Oxford’s uncle that gave England the Elizabethan sonnet form.]

181      THOU ART THY MOTHER’S GLASS – [Elsewhere in this fumigation of
            Stratfordosis the identity of W.H. has been leaked. Strangely enough, he had a
            (royal) mother too, one for whom April has sentimental significance. It is a
            splendid story, and has the advantage of being credible.]

183      SINCE SHE PRICK’D THEE OUT – [.... has Wood, like so many before him,
            beside himself. There are at least two books on Shakespearian prurience that have
            fun with this classic double (or triple) entendre. In addition to the anatomical
            explication, technical connotations in archery, design, and musical scoring are
            available. Shake-speare-Oxford, if challenged, could (probably with a straight face)
            have merely pointed out that in his pre-xerox world, musical notations and
            decorative patterns were transferred from page to page with a sharp object.]

189      “THE SO-CALLED DARK LADY - has proved a tempting pitfall to
            biographers.” [The following “thick-coming fantasies” find Wood looking up
            from the bottom of that pit. In addition to a ridiculous construction tied to
            Shaksper’s evanescent existence, we get a quick course on “Sex and the Working
            Poet.” How much better it would have been to curl up with a picture of Lady Anne
            Vavasor and the sonnets, comparing visual and verbal powers of description. In
            addition to Ms Vavasor, the DL has been studied as HRH herself with some
            success. Currently the possibility of this Lady as “Death” is under serious study. 
            Wood’s mastery of the ectoplastic outdoes his previous flights of fancy. Perhaps
            this is because anyone writing in, around, or about Shakespeare usually does so
            way over his or her head.

208      MERRY WIVES – [.... is another bog that regularly snags Stratfordim. Falstaff 
            shows up well before the Henriad, spiking the old wives' tale about Elizabeth’s
            request for more of his shenanigans. The play is about several aspects of court life
            including; the rivalry of young Oxford and Philip Sidney for the hand of Anne
            Cecil - and Oxford’s recovery from a certain disease under the care of HRH
            Elizabeth. Brooke was the pen name for Shake-speare-Oxford’s earlier version of
            Romeus and Juliet. Perhaps this was too complicated and politically risky for the
            BBC - so they stuck with the fairytale.]