The Shakespeare Code

(It’s best to read The Introduction first.)

The Shakespeare Code will present NINE new pieces of evidence to prove that William Shakespeare, Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton and Thomas Nashe visited Italy in 1593.

EXHIBIT (1)

Willobie his Avisa

In this anonymous satire, ‘W.S.’ ‘an old player’ (code for William Shakespeare) tries, unsuccessfully, to seduce Avisa – a chaste, idealised, woman.

‘W.S.’ then encourages his ‘familiar friend’ ‘H.W.’ (Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton) to woo her, so that he will fail as well.

‘H.W.’ is described in Willobie his Avisa as ‘Italo-Hispalensis’ (Italian/Spanish) and Italian phrases from John Florio are scattered throughout the work. 

In Canticle XLIX ‘H.W.’ says to Avisa:

A thousand features I have seen,

For traveller’s change and choice shall see,

In France, in Flanders and in Spain,

Yet none, nor none could conquer me:

Till now I saw this face of thine,

That makes my wittes are none of thine.

Willobie his Avisa was published in 1594.  For the satire to hit, Southampton must have visited Flanders, France, Spain and Italy before this date, i.e. 1593.

EXHIBIT (2)

The Parnassus Plays

These were satires, rather like the modern Cambridge Footlights Revues performed at St. John’s College in December 1601, but written, in part, by Thomas Nashe before his death earlier in the year.

 Ingenioso – Nashe’s flattering version of himself – introduces a character called Gullio:

Now gentlemen you may laugh if you will, for here comes a gull  

The four silver falcons on Henry Wriothesely, the thir d Earl of  Southampton’s crest – one of which Shakespeare used on his – were often described as sea-gulls….

Wriothesley/Southampton crest, 1611

Gullio, with his ‘becoming’ hair, his leg ‘better’ than Sir Philip Sidney and his ‘amiable face’ is a satire on Southampton.

Like Southampton, Gullio had just come back from Ireland, was boastfully proud of his military conquests, had a great quarrel with a ‘puling Liteltonian’ (code for Southampton’s enemy Lord Grey) and worshipped ‘sweet Mr. Shakespeare’ whose Venus and Adonis he lays under his pillow and whose picture he will have in his ‘study at the Court’.

Gullio refers to:

This rapier I bought when I sojourned in the University of Padua

And boasts:

My Latin was pure Latin, and such as they speak at Rheims and Padua.

So it was clearly known to the coterie audience that Gullio/Southampton had, by 1601, travelled and studied in Italy.

Rheims, a Catholic seminary, is also a dig at Southampton’s adherence to ‘the Old Faith’.

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This portrait of Gullio is also very similar to Aguecheek in Twelfth Night (which, The Shakespeare Code will argue, is also a coded satire on Southampton).

Maria, in Twelfth Night, desribes Aguecheek as ‘a fool and a great quarreller’. And Aguecheek has the same vanity about his long hair as Gullio:

Sir Toby: Then thou hadst had an excellent head of hair

Sir Andrew: Why would that have mended my hair?

Sir Toby:  Past question, for thou seest it will not curl by nature.

Sir Andrew:  But it becomes me well enough, does’t not?

Sir Toby:  Excellent, it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs, and spin it off.’

In The Parnassus Plays, Gullio says:

I stood stroking up my hair, which became me very admirably….

And Sir Toby Belch describes Aguecheek as:

An ass-head and a coxcomb and a knave, a thin-faced knave, a gull

 

Below is Nicholas Hilliard’s minature of the third Earl of Southampton:

Or is it Sir Andrew Aguecheek!

(It’s best to read Part 2. next.)