SAC Letters to Birthplace Trust and RSC re: Removal of Stanley Wells' False and Libelous Claims about Authorship Doubters

June 17, 2014

The Prince of Wales
President, RSC
Clarence House

Re: False Claim on RSC Website

Your Royal Highness,

I am writing on behalf of the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition to challenge the claim on the Royal Shakespeare Company's website that the phenomenon of doubt about William Shakespeare's identity is a “psychological aberration of considerable interest” attributable to various personal defects, including “snobbery,” etc., and “even … certifiable madness.” This claim is made in an article by Professor Stanley Wells, the honorary president of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, posted on the RSC's web page on the “Authorship Debate.”

This is the second time we have challenged this claim. The first time was in April, 2010, when essentially the same article was on the website of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. A copy of the letter I sent to them is enclosed, and I now issue the same challenge to you. Specifically, I challenge you to either back up your claims, or remove them immediately. The SBT gave no evidence or expert testimony in support of its claim, and the page was taken down in May, 2011; but the same article was then re-posted on the RSC's website.

I also hereby challenge Wells' specific claim, elaborating on his allegation of “snobbery,” that doubters are “reluctant to believe that works of genius could emanate from a man of relatively humble origin.” Wells and other Stratfordians have made this claim repeatedly, but as far as I know it is false. I do not know of any doubter who has expressed this view. If any have, they are in a small minority and are not generally representative of doubters. It is certainly not the position we take in the enclosed Declaration of Reasonable Doubt.

These claims, and others by Wells, such as labeling all doubters as “anti-Shakespearians,” are part of a pattern of vicious personal attacks to vilify doubters and suppress all dissent. Using these tactics, he has created and maintained a false negative stereotype of doubters. Does it make sense to think that Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance are “anti-Shakespeare”? What about our nearly 3,000 Declaration signatories — over 1,000 with advanced degrees and dozens of notables? What about the five U.S. Supreme Court justices who have been doubters? All “psychologically aberrant”? Who is it that is out of touch with reality here?

We have seen such tactics before, in totalitarian regimes which brook no dissent, labeling all heretics as insane. They do so not out of strength, but out of weakness and self interest. Is the case for William Shakspere really so weak that the RSC must resort to such tactics?

Yours sincerely,

John M. Shahan
Chairman, SAC

cc:  Nigel Hugill, Chairman, RSC
Lady Susie Sainsbury, Deputy Chair, RSC
Catherine Mallyon, Executive Director, RSC
Peter Kyle, Chairman, SBT
Stanley Wells, Honorary President, SBT
Alexander Waugh, Honorary President, SAC

January 20, 2015

Nigel Hugill, Chairman
Royal Shakespeare Company
Stratford-upon-Avon

Re: False Claims on RSC Website

Dear Mr. Hugill,

I am following up on my letter to the Prince of Wales last 17th June, challenging the false claim on the RSC website that the phenomenon of doubt about Shakespeare's authorship is attributable to various “psychological aberrations” of doubters, not evidence (attached). On 3rd July, 2014, I received a reply saying that my letter had been forwarded to the RSC to respond to me directly. I have yet to receive a response, so I hereby renew my request and am sending it to you directly. If you cannot back up the claim, you should remove it.

I would add that Professor Wells' article on the “Authorship Debate” contains numerous other misleading claims, and it should be taken down for that reason as well. For example, Wells states that “A mass of evidence from his own time shows that a man called William Shakespeare wrote the plays and poems of William Shakespeare.” No, a mass of evidence shows that someone was writing under that name, but nothing shows they were written by a man with that name any more than the fact someone wrote under the name Mark Twain proves his works were written by a man of that name, not by a man named Sam Clemens. A substantial amount of evidence from the time suggests that the name was a pseudonym.

Wells ignores the fact that the Stratford man's name wasn't spelled like the author's name. He never spelled his name “Shakespeare,” even when it might have been to his advantage. Not one of his six accepted signatures spells the name the same way as the author's name. In fact, Mr. Shakspere never spelled his name the same way twice in his extant signatures. Yes, spellings were not yet standardized at the time, but there is a big difference between others spelling a name various ways when spelling it phonetically and a writer having no standard way of signing his own name. Shakspere's signatures suggest he could not write. There is a clear, consistent difference between the spelling of the name on the works and the spelling of his name, and names of his family members, in parish records in Stratford.

No reference to the author “Shakespeare” indicates that he was from Stratford-upon-Avon during Mr. Shakspere's lifetime. Rather than “a mass of evidence” from his time showing that Shakspere of Stratford was the author, Diana Price has shown that his alleged writing career is less well-documented than any of twenty-four other known writers of the period (Shakspeare's Unorthodox Biography, paperback edition, Chart of Literary Paper Trails). In fact, there isn't one solid piece of evidence for him as a writer from during his lifetime.

According to Wells, “Explicit evidence that the Shakespeare who wrote the plays was the man of Stratford-upon-Avon is provided by his monument in Holy Trinity Church, which compares the man of Stratford with great figures of antiquity.” Wells ignores the fact that two of these “great figures of antiquity” (Nestor and Socrates) were not writers at all, and the third, Virgil, was not Shakespeare's favorite poet. Ovid would have been appropriate.

The monument's strange inscription never states that Mr. Shakspere was the author Shakespeare. To anyone living in Stratford who knew him, the epitaph probably appeared to say no such thing. It neither names nor quotes from any of the works, and it never mentions poetry, plays or theater. Most biographers have little to say about the inscription, and even Wells has said that it is cryptic. Epitaphs of other writers of the time identify them clearly as such. Why not Shakspere's epitaph? Also, we now know that the effigy in today's Stratford monument is not the same as the original.

Wells cites Ben Jonson's verses in the First Folio, “which call him the 'sweet swan of Avon.'” He neglects to mention that the principle venue for Court performances of plays was Hampton Court, long-known as “Avon,” as Ben Jonson surely knew. Seen in context, that's what Jonson refers to, not Stratford-upon-Avon. Wells also neglects to mention that Jonson warns readers not to look on the Droeshout engraving on the title page of the First Folio — a ridiculous caricature with multiple oddities warning the observant not to take what follows at face value. The most obvious of these is the impossible doublet in which the right front is actually the left rear, giving it two left arms!

Wells says “Equally there is nothing to show that anyone doubted Shakespeare's authorship until the late eighteenth century.” This is totally false. There are several examples of people indicating that they thought the name “Shakespeare” was a pen name in the late-16th and early-17th centuries. In 1628, Thomas Vicars made reference to “that famous poet who takes his name from 'Shaking' and 'Spear,'” thus revealing that it was a made-up pen name, without the risk of saying it openly. It's hardly surprising that knowledge of such a secret would be lost during the English Civil War, when the theaters were closed for a generation (1642-1660), and the truth had to be rediscovered.

But most revealing is something else that Wells omitted. In 1635, Cuthbert Burbage, brother of Richard Burbage, petitioned Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, in a legal case. The Burbages were the founder-investors in the Globe Theatre, and Mr. Shakspere was a sharer. Cuthbert surely knew the role Shakspere played in the acting company. In the petition, Cuthbert names the investors in the Globe, referring to “Shakspere,” and “Shakspeare,” as one of several “deserving men” and as one of several “men players.” These terms do not suggest that Cuthbert thought of him as the poet-playwright Shakespeare, just another member of the acting company.

By 1635, after the publication of the first two Folios, the name “Shakespeare” was well known, and it would always have been spelled that way in print. Further, the man to whom Cuthbert was writing — Philip Herbert — was a dedicatee, with his brother William, of the two published Folios. If Cuthbert knew that the “deserving man” and “man player” was also their playwright, he would have (1) spelled his name “Shakespeare,” and (2) mentioned that this Shakespeare was the author, immortalized in the Folios. This would have greatly strengthened his petition. The fact that he did not do this suggests that he knew his fellow actor-sharer was not the author William Shakespeare. I emailed Professor Wells and asked if there is any other way to interpret it, and he hasn't replied.

But not only did Wells omit this from his article on your website, he omitted it from his chapter in Shakespeare Beyond Doubt, after saying he listed “all” references to the author until 1642 (p. 74). He also omitted a number of other references to Shakespeare that point to an authorship problem, including Vicars' allusion above. So there is a pattern of false and/or misleading claims by Wells. His false stereotype of authorship doubters is a part of this pattern. His article should come down.

Yours sincerely,

John M. Shahan
Chairman, SAC

cc: HRH Charles, Prince of Wales, President, RSC
Lady Susie Sainsbury, Deputy Chair, RSC
Catherine Mallyon, Executive Director, RSC
Peter Kyle, Chairman, SBT
Stanley Wells, Honorary President, SBT
Alexander Waugh, Honorary President, SAC