The Shakespeare Code

(It’s best to read Parts One, Two, Three, Four and Five first)

‘Richard III’ Decoded  is a series of five short articles which argue that William Shakespeare’s The True Tragedy of Richard III was not a piece of pro-Tudor propaganda.

It was, in fact, a coded attack on Queen Elizabeth herself.

It was a satire on the life of Sir Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth’s lover and friend, who had died just a couple of years earlier (1588).

In 1584, the Jesuits had published Leicester’s Commonwealth, a savage attack on Leicester which Shakespeare draws on to create his portrait of the hunch-backed king.

The King Richard of Shakespeare’s play

1. Murders a husband to get his wife.

2. Murders his wife to get another wife.

3. Uses black magic (or seems to!) to get his way with women.

4. Assumes, in the midst of his atrocities, an air of religious piety.

The historical King Richard was never accused of these crimes: but the Earl of Leicester was.

The Shakespeare Code argues that the original, lavish production of Richard III was staged in the grounds of Place House in Titchfield.

It was here that Leicester, acting as agent-provocateur, had destroyed the Catholic cause in England. He had encouraged the Duke of Norfolk to marry Mary Queen of Scots and the Earl of Southampton’s family to rebel against Queen Elizabeth.

It was also at Place House (when it was an Abbey) that King Henry VI had married Margaret of Anjou.

Henry VI marries Margaret of Anjou in Titchfield

That is why Henry VI – as a corpse and a ghost – plays such a prominent part in Richard III. He was a local hero at Titchfield and had granted, in 1447,  the village a school and a fair. It was against the background of this fair that the play – with its horses, armour, tents and armies – was originally performed.

The fair at Titchfield is held to this day:

Titchfield Fair

The Shakespeare Code also argues that the pro-Tudor version of the Richard III story, performed by the Queen’s Men, was a government reply to Shakespeare’s subversive one.

It was the beginning of the hostility that was to grow between Queen Elizabeth and one of the most brilliant of her subjects, the Catholic homosexual, William Shakespeare.

(It’s best to read ‘Richard III’ and War next.)