Henry NEVILLE - I07428 - Individual Information -

Henry NEVILLE (I07428)

Name:
Henry NEVILLE

Source: royalfamRev.FTW

Source Text: Date of Import: Jun 19, 2007

Gender: Male

Birth: 1564 Of, Billingbere, Berkshire, England
Death: 10 July 1615 Waltham Saint Lawrence, Berkshire, England

Personal Facts and Details

Notes

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‎[royalfamRev.FTW]‎

'Real' Shakespeare Claim Whips Up Tempest Anew
Two Academics Believe Unkown Politician Was True Bard

By Mike Collett-White, Reuters

APWilliam Shakespeare's identity, or existence even, has been argued over since the 19th cent ury.

LONDON ‎(Oct. 7)‎ - Something is rotten in the state of Shakespeare scholarship.

Two academics say they have discovered the "real" William Shakespeare, the never-before-ident ified Henry Neville, whipping up a tempest of debate among the Bard's followers who have ha d to defend him against a host of pretenders.

Academics Brenda James and Professor William Rubinstein have recorded their findings in a ne w book in which they make the case for Neville, a Tudor politician, diplomat and landowner wh ose life span matched that of Shakespeare almost exactly.

The authenticity of Shakespeare, author of dozens of sonnets and plays still performed today , has been argued over since the 19th century, with Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe and ev en Queen Elizabeth I among proposed alternatives.

James, a Briton, says she stumbled upon the new contender Neville while decoding the Dedicati on to Shakespeare's Sonnets, which led her to identify Neville as the author of the plays.

She spent the next seven years gathering evidence to prove her point. When she asked Rubinste in, of the University of Wales, to check her facts, he was sufficiently convinced to agree t o advise on and co-author the book.

"I was an agnostic when I started," American-born Rubinstein told Reuters. "I am certainly no t now. A bolt from the blue, that's the way I describe it."

James said a notebook written by Neville while locked in the Tower of London around 1602 cont ained detailed notes which ended up in "Henry VIII" first performed several years later.

His experience in the tower, where he faced execution for his part in a plot to overthrow th e queen, would also explain the shift in 1601 from histories and comedies to the great "Shake spearian" tragedies.

He was learned, traveled around Europe and was a close friend of the Earl of Southampton to w hom the Shakespeare sonnets are believed to be dedicated.

"I cannot see any point on which this theory falls down at the moment," James said.

OTHERS NOT SO SURE

Not all Shakespeare experts are so sure.

"Given the amount of documentation showing William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote t he plays one can only suppose that the conspiracy theorists are in it for the money they ca n make out of peddling their bizarre wares," said Roger Pringle, director of the Shakespear e Birthplace Trust.

Ann Thompson, professor of English at King's College London and an editor on the Arden Shakes peare series, has not read the new book "The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare, " but has her doubts.

One of the chief reasons given by James and Rubinstein for doubting Shakespeare's authorshi p is his lack of formal education and familiarity with the ways of the court.

"It is snobbery, basically," Thompson told Reuters. "People think you would have to have a un iversity education at least to write as he does."

She also argued that someone of Neville's knowledge of Europe would not make the same basic g eographical errors that appear in the Shakespeare canon.

The fact that Mark Rylance, artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe theater, has written th e forward to the new book published by Longman has added weight to its authenticity.

Yet for many lovers of the plays attributed to Shakespeare, the whole authorship debate is mu ch ado about nothing.

"I'm of the view that it's not a question that is even worth asking. The plays are Shakespear e; it is they which are fascinating," said Michael Clamp, an editor on the Cambridge School S hakespeare series.

10/06/05 08:37 ET

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	Events of close relatives
Birth	1564 4435 Of, Billingbere, Berkshire, England Source: royalfamRev.FTW Source Text: Date of Import: Jun 19, 2007
Christening	30 May 1564 St Anne Black Friars, London, Middlesex, England Source: royalfamRev.FTW Source Text: Date of Import: Jun 19, 2007
Marriage	Anne KILLIGREW - Waltham, St.lawrence, Berkshire, England Source: royalfamRev.FTW Source Text: Date of Import: Jun 19, 2007
Death	10 July 1615 (Age 51) Waltham Saint Lawrence, Berkshire, England Source: royalfamRev.FTW Source Text: Date of Import: Jun 19, 2007
Ancestral File Number (AFN)	9FWW-LS
Last Change	8 October 2005 Source: royalfamRev.FTW Source Text: Date of Import: Jun 19, 2007