The Shakespeare Code

Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather, Henry VII, became King of England by defeating Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Apart from that, Henry’s claim to the throne was tenuous.

This made Elizabeth’s own claim tenuous as well.

Many Roman Catholics also thought that Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII, had not been properly married to Anne Boleyn, so Elizabeth was a bastard.

The Jesuits even claimed that Anne Boleyn was Henry VIII’s own illegitimate daughter. So Elizabeth was also an incestuous bastard.

Elizabeth’s cunning spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham and her lover, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, formed a company of star actors in 1583 called the Queen’s Men. Liveried in red, and paid more than any other performers, their job was constantly tour England to shore up the position of the Queen.

To justify Henry VII’s defeat of Richard III, they turned Richard into a devil-worshipping monster. In their version of The True Tragedy of Richard III  he’s not only a serial murderer, he’s Hannibal Lector as well:

I hope with this lame hand of mine to rake out that hateful heart of Richmond, [Henry VII] and when I have it, to eat it panting hot with salt, and drink his blood luke warm though I be sure will poison me…

By defeating Richard, the play argues, Henry VII was carrying out the will of God and the whole universe:

‘The sun by day shines hotly for revenge

The moon by night eclipseth for revenge

The stars are turned to comets for revenge

The planets change their courses for revenge

The silly lambs sit bleating for revenge

The  screeking raven sits croaking for revenge

Whole heads of beasts come bellowing for revenge

And all, yea all the world I think

Cries for revenge, and nothing but revenge…’

In a preposterous act of prophesy, a character in the play even foresees the dazzling reign of Henry VII’s grand-daughter, Queen Elizabeth:

‘She is the lamp that keeps fair England light

And through her faith her country lives in peace

And she hath put proud Anti-Christ to flight

And been the means that civil wars did cease.

Then England kneel upon thy hairy knee,

And thank that God that still provides for thee…

For if her Grace’s days be brought to end

Your hope is gone, on whom did peace depend.

Did Shakespeare’s version of Richard III serve the same political

purpose as that of the Queen’s Men?

The Shakespeare Code argues emphatically ‘NO

(It’s best to read Part Two now.)