The Shakespeare Code

(It’s best to read Shakespeare in Titchfield first)

John Aubrey (1626-97), the collector of gossip and tittle-tattle about the rich and the famous…

 

…..records that William Shakespeare ‘in his younger years’ was ‘a schoolmaster in the country.’

He gleaned this information from William Beeston (c. 1610/11-82) who was an actor and impressario whom John Dryden called ‘the chronicle of the stage’.

He was the son of Christopher Beeston (c. 1582-38) who was an actor and impresario himself. Christopher Beeston is thought to have been the boy actor ‘Kit’ mentioned in the ‘plott’ (treatment) of the play The Seven Deadly Sins written by Queen Elizabeth’s favourite jester, Richard Tarl(e)ton…

….and presented in a revival by Lord Strange’s troupe in 1591/2

In 1598 Christopher acted with Shakespeare himself (in a production by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men) of  Ben Jonson’s play, Every Man in his Humour…

 

Thomas Nashe (1567-1601) the diminutive, buck-toothed, pamphleteer, poet, novelist and playwright…. 

….wrote a pamphlet in 1592 called Strange Newes….

He  dedicated it to a mysterious ‘William Apis Lapis’…

Nashe was using a Latin code. ‘Apis’ means ‘bee’ and ‘Lapis’ means ‘stone’ – so William’s real name was William Bee-stone, or Beeston.

[Note: This cannot be the same William Beeston who told Aubrey that Shakespeare had been ‘a schoolmaster in the country’. The ‘Aubrey’  William Beeston was not born till around 1610/11, nearly twenty years after Nashe’s 1592 Strange Newes pamphlet.]

By further decoding the complex language of Nashe’s pamphlet, we learn that this ‘Apis Lapis’ Beeston…

1.  Was mean.

2. Was bad at grammar, both English and Latin.

3. Was a bit of a crook.

4. Loved alcohol, which he sold to lawyers.

5. Loved food.

6. Loved poetry, especially Chaucer in English and Terence in Latin.

7. Had a massive sex drive.

8.  Had illegitimate children.

9. Was great company and formed strong and loyal friendships.

Although the ‘Apis Lapis’ William Beeston and the ‘Aubrey’ William Beeston cannot be the same man, scholars have often suggested that there might be a link between the two.

But what link?

Titchfield in Hampshire (and The Shakespeare Code) provide the answer!

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The Code has discovered that there was a William Beeston living in Titchfield in Hampshire who matches the  ‘Apis Lapis’ profile exactly.

At the end of his life (1638) he was living at Posbrook Farm, a magnificent building (now called Great Posbrook Farm) which is still standing….

 

By then he had become an intimate friend of the Southampton family, which had included the third Earl, Henry Wriothseley, Shakespeare’s patron and lover….

In 1624 it had been Beeston’s melancholy duty to bring back the bodies of both the third Earl and his son from the Low Countries where they had died on campaign. 

Beeeston then became the mentor of the teenage fourth Earl of Southampton, Thomas…

Beeston even lodged near the Earl in St. John’s College when the young lord went up to Cambridge to study.

Beeston’s will survives at the Hampshire Record Offices, written, signed and sealed in his own, bold  hand….

Like Apis Lapis, Titchfield Beeston uses bad grammar.  He writes about ‘the alone merits’ of Jesus Christ….

 ….when he means ‘the sole merits.’

Like Apis Lapis, he loved food and wine. We learn, from the inventory taken after his death, that he had over £2.10.0 worth of cheese in his loft  – over £1,000 in today’s money…

He also possessed his own brewhouse and a buttery with presses, vats, barrels and flaggons and a loft crammed with hops.

Like Apis Lapis, he also loved literature. In his study he had a library of books worth £10 – £5,000 in today’s money…

Also, like Apis Lapis, he was mean.

In his will he leaves a paltry five shillings (£125) to every child ‘that God hath sent me’….

(As we can see, Beeston originally wrote ‘every child that God sent me’ but changed it later to the more gramatically elegant ‘that God hath sent me’).

Beeston had married Elizabeth, the much younger daughter of his business partner, Arthur Bromfield, and by 1638 had fathered a family of two boys and four girls.

Why doesn’t he refer to them by name in his will?

For the answer we have to go back to the 1592 Strange Newes pamphlet.

Here Nashe describes how Apis Lapis’s ‘hospitality’ (code for ‘lust’) has brought forth ‘fruits’ (code for ‘illegitimate children’)  ‘who are of age to speak for themselves’.

Christopher Beeston was a child actor by 1592 and certainly able to speak for himself.

But even more intersesting, he sometimes used an alias, Christopher Hutchinson.

This might suggest he was one of Apis Lapis Beeston’s illegitimate children….

By using the catch-all phrase ‘every child that God hath sent me’ ‘Apis Lapis’ Beeston could be including his illegitimate children in his five shilling gift…

But the strongest evidence of a link between ‘Apis Lapis’ Beeston and Christopher is the date of their respective wills…

Christopher wrote his will on 4 October, 1638 – then added a codicil on 7 October.

‘APIS LAPIS’  BEESTON WROTE HIS WILL ON 9 OCTOBER – TWO DAYS LATER!

Either this is a coincidence of monumental proportions or there was a link between the two men.

And the obvious link is father and natural son.

Christopher, as a boy, would have attended the grammar school at Titchfield, which still stands at the gates of the Southampton family’s Place House…

 

He would  have been taught by Shakespeare…

Shakespeare would have recommended his talented young pupil to Lord Strange’s Company…

Christopher would have told his own son, Wiliam, about all this… 

And William would have told Aubrey…

CODA

The Shakespeare Code believes that…

‘Apis Lapis’ Beeston was, ‘in younger years’, a bit of a rogue. Wearing a greasy cap, with a huge dagger at his back,  he hung round taverns with low-life criminals.

But as he became more and more closely involved with the Southampton family, he became more respectable.

His actor son, Christopher, pursuing the life of an actor, did not….

In fact in 1602 Christopher was up on a rape charge…

Even for actors, this was too much. He was forced to leave the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and join the less repectable Worcester’s Men.

It was also too much for his natural father, ‘Apis Lapis’ Beeston, who cut off all communication.

But there was always the possibility that when ‘Apis Lapis’ Beeston died, Christopher would make a claim on his natural father’s property.

(‘Apis Lapis’ Beeston was on the way to becoming wealthy enough, and respectable enough, to become an ‘esquire’ with his own coat of arms…)

To prevent this, ‘Apis Lapis’ Beeston married the young daughter of his business partner, Bromfield, around 1628.

(Bromfield was also close to the Southampton family: he had helped cover up a murder by the third Earl’s friends, the Danvers brothers, and had been rewarded with property and a coat of arms…)

Christopher, by this time, had his own son, whom he pointedly named William after his natural father. ‘Apis Lapis’ Beeston, with equal point, named his second son William as well. 

For him, his natural grandson did not exist…

When Christopher was dying, he asked to see his natural father. He was desperately worried about his ‘many great debts’ and begged ‘Apis Lapis’ Beeston to provide for his natural grandson – who in turn would provide for his wife and family.

It was worry about the finances of his son that motivated a codicil to Christopher’s original will.

‘Apis Lapis’ Beeston refused and immediately wrote a will that left everything to his wife. The  ‘five shilling’ gift to each of the children that God had ‘sent him’ made it clear to Christopher that he could expect nothing more from his natural father.

It also blocked any further claims on his estate, rather like Shakespeare’s infamous gift of his ‘second-best bed’  to his wife.

‘Apis Lapis’ Beeston’s legitimate children could expect to inherit from his ‘dearly beloved’ wife ‘as she shall find them dutiful to her and well-disposed’…

Christopher Beeston was buried on 15 October, 1638, less than a fortnight after he had written his will.

‘Apis Lapis’ Beeston must have caught his son’s disease. He was buried in the graveyard of St. Peter’s, Titchfield on 3 December.

The week after his own baby daughter, Anne, was baptised in the same beautiful church…

‘Apis Lapis’ Beeston had retained his massive sex drive to the end…

CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENT

 

Prof. Jonathan Bate, Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Studies at the University of Warwick and a Board Member of the Royal Shakespeare Company writes of The Strange Case of Mr. Apis Lapis (upon which this article is based)…

It’s a terrific article and very persuasive that Beeston [of Posbrook Farm, Titchfield] is Apis Lapis. All very interesting….

(To read a full account of The Code’s theory, please click: The Strange Case of Mr. Apis Lapis. )