 One of the world's most celebrated writers is William Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and allegedly added about 300 words to the English language. For many people, the story of William Shakespeare is a celebration, a celebration of a commoner who achieved greatness. But unfortunately, this commoner might not have achieved greatness at all. But before we go any further, you know what to do. Please hit that subscribe button and give us a like. Also, as always, a very, very special thank you to all of our patrons. Without you, we could not do what we do. We appreciate you and we are very, very grateful to each and every one of you. Welcome to Esoteric Atlanta, my name is Bryce, and today on Mystery Monday, we are going to be talking about the authorship question of Shakespeare's plays. Now, this mystery regarding the authorship of Shakespeare's plays was first brought to my attention in high school. I was taking an honors English class and Mr. Saunders, my teacher, spoke to us about this idea that William Shakespeare was not actually the person who wrote his plays. Shakespeare's plays have lasted for hundreds of years. They are brilliantly written. And some might say that the reason why they've lasted all this time is because they are literally our modern-day soap operas. You see, over time, human circumstance changes. Our modern world changes. However, human beings never really change. Thus, we have the human condition. Most of Shakespeare's plays and his sonnets deal with this human condition. Love, deceit, treachery, jealousy. Shakespeare's plays also cover the upper class, the elite, the royals. The person who wrote Shakespeare's plays was very familiar with the way court life was lived. This person understood the language of the elite. He also seemed to be in favor of the elite. And this is one of the biggest reasons why many scholars for many, many, many years have doubted that the person who wrote Shakespeare's play was not actually a commoner from Stratford upon Avon named William Shakespeare. Mark Twain, the American writer, was one who liked to point out that the person who wrote William Shakespeare's plays understood the language of the elite. Obviously, a commoner would not know the language of the elite. The story goes that when Mark Twain was on a riverboat, he heard a riverboat captain talking in riverboat slang. It occurred to him that in order to carry off a story, a story about a group of people in a certain demographic, then the writer of that story would have to be fluent in the way this particular demographic spoke to each other. Now, we know that Mark Twain, a lot of his stories like Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, all revolve around the Mississippi River, a time in our history when riverboats were big. And because of this, he felt like the world had been deceived. There's no way a commoner from Stratford upon Avon would have been able to pull off 37 plays about court life. Mark Twain, amongst many other writers, also believed that William Shakespeare was a pseudonym, a pseudonym for somebody who was very, very powerful in the Elizabethan court life of England. Whitman and Emerson were two other writers who also doubted Shakespeare. English writer Charles Dickens also doubted Shakespeare. Charles Dickens said, the life of Shakespeare is a fine mystery and I tremble every day least something should turn up. The reason why Charles Dickens said this is because we don't know a whole lot about the real William Shakespeare. We know that a real William Shakespeare was born in Stratford upon Avon in 1564. We believe his birthday to be around the 23rd of April 1564 because he was baptized on the 26th of April. That's the only documentation that we have. We know that at 18 years old, this Stratford boy named William married a woman named Anne Hathaway. We know that there was a little bit of a scandal revolving this marriage because William was 18 and Anne was 26. And apparently when they got married, she was already pregnant. Nowadays, we would call that a shotgun wedding. Not sure what they called it back in the 1500s though. We know that William Shakespeare had three children, a girl, and two twins. We do know that the real William Shakespeare did go to London anywhere between the dates of 1585 and 1592. However, we know that when he was 49 years old, around 1613, he did return back to Stratford upon Avon to basically retire. And then three years later, on the 23rd of April in 1616, his alleged birthday, he died. There are no school records of this William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare's father was a man named John Shakespeare and he was a glovemaker. This was a normal middle class job. And of course, at this point on our world day timeline, school was not necessarily mandatory. If Shakespeare did have any formal education, it would have been the king's new school. In Stratford, which was about half a mile from his house, again, but we have no attendance records showing that he ever attended. He would have learned things like Latin and possibly a little bit of Greek, but that's about the extent of his learning. Now people who are in favor of Shakespeare actually being William Shakespeare say that for a brilliant mind. That might have been enough education to give him the wherewithal to write what he wrote. However, that still does not explain how this commoner, this glovemaker's son, would have known so much about the upper class. Now we do know that A. William Shakespeare worked as an actor in London during his stay in London. And that could have been where his name was recognized by a different person who used William Shakespeare's name in his writings. Now another piece of hard evidence against William Shakespeare being the actual author of William Shakespeare's plays is William Shakespeare's Will. In William Shakespeare's Will, he doesn't mention anything about his works. He talks about a sword and a silver bullet and he mentions a couple of his fellow actors in London. But there's no passing on his manuscripts and there's absolutely nothing in his will regarding him owning shares in the London Theater. We also know that the real William Shakespeare signed his last name without an E after the K, Shek Spear, or Shek Spear. And the writer of Shakespeare's plays added an E in, or we saw it hyphenated. Many scholars believe that many of the people living during this Elizabethan time understood that it was a nom de plume, it was a pseudonym. We know this too because soon after William Shakespeare's death in 1616, people started writing about the true identity of the author. In fact, to this date, 4,000 books have been written regarding the subject of Shakespeare's true identity. We also know that the portraits that are portrayed to be Shakespeare are bust. We see of Shakespeare in places like Stratford, upon Avon, or even in Westminster in London. We know that this face is probably not the face of William Shakespeare. In fact, this was based off of a painting called The Unknown Man. It's also pretty peculiar that somebody that was such a great writer as William Shakespeare left no letters behind. In my opinion, there is way more evidence that Shakespeare was somebody else and not a commoner. So why would somebody, a powerful person in court life, use a fake name to write his plays? Well, that's really simple, and that comes down to custom and culture of the time. You see playwrights and actors at that time were considered lowly. The lowly playwright, the lowly actor. And even though people of the court enjoyed the entertainment of plays, they most certainly were not a part of them. We also know that in a lot of Shakespeare's plays, there is coding. Messages about our world. Messages perhaps sent from the elite to other elites, which we'll get into a little later on. But who are the suspects? The usual, most likely suspects to be the authors of Shakespeare's plays. Well, the first one is Sir Francis Bacon, and this is the one that I tend to gravitate towards. Now, if you've been on this channel for a long time, you know the very, very first video we did here was Over the Door to Guidestones. And there allegedly is a theory that the Guidestones were placed here by the Rosa Crucians who were tied to Sir Francis Bacon in the Discovery of America, where perhaps they thought the American continent was the lost Atlantis. If you have not seen that episode, I will include that in the description box down below. But who was Sir Francis Bacon and why do people believe he could have been William Shakespeare? Sir Francis Bacon was first considered the true author of Shakespeare's plays around the mid-19th century. The first tip-off was consistencies in his writings and that of the playwright Shakespeare. This theory is called the Baconian Theory. Now Sir Francis Bacon was a scientist, he was a diplomat, a politician, and a philosopher. In 1607 he became the Solicitor General. In 1613 he became the Attorney General. And in 1618 he became Lord Chancellor of England. He was also knighted by King James I of England in 1603. Sir Francis Bacon was one of the most powerful people at court life during the Elizabethan times and obviously into King James reign as well. Now remember King James was the King responsible for translating the Bible into English. This of course is the King James Bible that we still have today. And there is speculation that Shakespeare, or whoever Shakespeare was, was the person who wrote the English version of the Bible. Or the first English version of the Bible. Now Sir Francis Bacon was born on the 22nd of January of 1561 and he died on the 9th of April in 1626. He died of pneumonia. Now there is a legend that Sir Francis Bacon was the illegitimate son of Queen Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth adored Sir Francis Bacon. Queen Elizabeth also adored Shakespeare's plays. Again this is the Elizabethan era of England. In 1621 Sir Francis Bacon did fall into debt. And Parliament decided to charge Bacon with about 23 separate counts of corruption. He ended up being fined 40,000 pounds and was sent to the Tower of London. However after a few days King James released him and dismissed the fine. After that he stopped serving in government and spent the rest of his life in study. Which again there is a whole lot to this story of Sir Francis Bacon. And a lot of information about Sir Francis Bacon that we probably won't ever know until we can't know. He allegedly was a Rosa Crucian. He probably was into some stuff that the Freemasons are also into. He was part of the elite. He was part of the court life and he could very well have been Queen Elizabeth's illegitimate son. As I mentioned before he is tied to the Georgia Guidestones. Obviously not to the building of the Georgia Guidestones because they were built in 1980. But he was tied to the Rosa Crucian belief again that there was a possibility that the American continent, not just the United States of America but the whole continent was possibly the lost Atlantis. This theory has come up a lot in my studies regarding French topics and the elite. Our second suspect is a man named Edward Devere. He was a 17th Earl of Oxford. This is called the Oxfordian theory. This theory became popular in the 1920s. People believe this theory because the plays of Shakespeare match events that happened in Devere's life. Now Devere was born on the 12th of April of 1550. He was heir to one of the oldest earldoms in the kingdom. He was beloved at court. Everybody loved him at court life. However, apparently he had anger issues and he was known to have outburst of anger. And so he was not really allowed to hold government positions because he legitimately could not keep his cool. Now Devere was an extensive traveler. He traveled throughout Europe, especially loving Italy. So that would explain a lot of the Shakespearean Italian plays and how much knowledge Shakespeare had of Italy. However, Devere died in 1604 and 12th place were released after his death. People who follow the Oxfordian theory of Edward Devere being Shakespeare kind of brushed that off. Meaning that he probably wrote these plays before his death and they were just released after his death. Like that's basically no big deal. The next suspect that we're going to talk about today is Christopher Marlowe. Now Christopher Marlowe was a very famous playwright around the times of Shakespeare. You could probably remember back in your school days, study Christopher Marlowe. There is rumor that at the very least Christopher Marlowe might have helped Shakespeare write some stuff. They had very, very, very similar writing styles and they actually had very similar backgrounds. They both came from commoners. But Christopher Marlowe legitimately worked his way up. He had a degree from Cambridge so he was very, very well educated. And because of his brilliance in writing, he became familiar with court life. Now Christopher Marlowe was considered a dangerous writer at the time because he supported the atheist life. He wrote a lot of anti-religious works and of course this is also during the time of this huge reformation. So super dangerous because people are fighting about who Jesus really was and what version, what flavor of Christianity is the right one. The whole my Jesus is better than your Jesus argument has been around for a very long time. Except for back in these days, you legit could have been burned at the stake for having the wrong opinion of Jesus. So for a writer to then take the atheist approach was even more dangerous. Now Christopher Marlowe had a bit of a mysterious death in 1953. He was only 29 years old. Allegedly he was stabbed at a pub. Although many people think that he faked his death because there was an arrest warrant out for him for his anti-religious writings. And then after he faked his death, he went on to write under the name William Shakespeare. Now personally I don't believe that Christopher Marlowe was William Shakespeare. I know that they were contemporaries and peers but I just don't buy it. He might have faked his own death, he might have gone and lived off the grid for his writing but I really legitimately don't think that any commoner regardless of whether he worked his way up the ranks or not would have been responsible for these plays. Again, I believe it was Sir Francis Bacon. That's been my opinion for a very long time. Now as I said earlier in the video, there's a lot about Shakespeare's writings that are messages. We know that in Hollywood today a lot of messages are put into movies. And the fact that we don't say anything means that we consent. That's their logic anyway. So what if the same thing was being done back then only through plays? And the reason why I bring this up is because in A Midsummer Night's Dream, one of Shakespeare's plays, they talk about a hollow earth. A Midsummer Night's Dream was written between 1595 and 1596. In Act 3 of Scene 2 it says, I'll believe as soon as this whole earth may be bored and that the moon may travel through the center creep and so displease. Now of course that's not the only code in Shakespeare's plays. But it was one that piqued my interest while I was doing our deep dive into the hollow earth. But tell me what you think in the comment section below. Do you know of any more codes in Shakespeare's plays that you can share with us? This is a very fascinating topic and I would love to hear your thoughts on it. Alright guys, I hope you're having a wonderful start of your week. Please remember that tomorrow I will be on The Dark Outpost again. That link is in the description box below. If you don't want to go on The Dark Outpost platform, I believe you can find the show on Bitshoot and Rumble as well. On tomorrow's show on The Dark Outpost, we will be going through Chapter 13 through 18 of the Book of Jubilee. There will be a replay of that on Wednesday and we're going to finish up our discussion of Josh Duggar and the IBLP. If we have time tomorrow on The Dark Outpost, we'll dig a little deeper into Bill Gother. If you are somebody who grew up in the IBLP, maybe you've left the IBLP. Are you just know more about it? If you would like to share your story, not just on my channel but also with David on his channel about the IBLP, then please reach out to me at esotericatlanta.com. Make sure you put in the subject line the IBLP so I can see it. I get so many emails a day and I've also gotten spammed a couple of times so sometimes it takes me a while to get through everything. Make sure you title the subject that so I can see it right away and get back to you. Thank you again to Josh McCabe for doing our music. If you would like to purchase the opening song, there is a link down in the description box below. Thank you again to Todd Roderick for helping me get this video out to you all today. Todd Roderick's fan is also going to be on The Dark Outpost soon. They're going to do a performance. If you would like to have access to Todd's music, there is a link down to his YouTube page as well for their Band the Flying Mystics. Alright guys, I hope that you all have a wonderful Monday and I will talk to you soon. Bye!