Prince Tudor Theory - Prince Tudor Part I - Later Writers

Later Writers

The theory was developed further by Dorothy and Charlton Ogburn in their biography of Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, This Star of England (1952). They also adopted the view that Southampton was the child of the queen and Oxford. They cited evidence from Shakespeare's plays and poetry that Oxford had drawn from his own life experiences to create the characters and events in the works attributed to "William Shakespeare." After his concealed birth Southampton was raised by parental surrogates. They asserted that the narrative poem Venus and Adonis, dedicated to Southampton, described the circumstances of his conception in the affair between Oxford (Adonis) and the queen (Venus). Southampton was also the "Fair Youth" of the sonnets and that the first 17 sonnets (often called the "procreation sonnets") were written by Oxford to his natural son, urging him to marry and produce an heir. Like Allen before them, the Ogburns rejected the supposition that the poet and the Fair Youth were homosexual lovers, stressing instead the fatherly tone of the sonnets addressing the Fair Youth.

The Prince Tudor theory was further expanded by Elisabeth Sears' Shakespeare and the Tudor Rose (2002), Hank Whittemore's The Monument (2005), and Helen Heightsman Gordon's The Secret Love Story in Shakespeare's Sonnets (2008). Sears explores how Elizabeth might have concealed one or more pregnancies, but decided to remain unmarried for political reasons. Whittemore believes the sonnets emphasize the royal blood of Henry Wriothesley, who was convicted of treason for participation in the Essex Rebellion of 1601, but who otherwise might have been named as successor to his mother, Queen Elizabeth I. Gordon emphasizes the love story between Elizabeth Tudor and Edward De Vere, citing an alleged historical reference to their love affair in 1572–73. Gordon believes that the mysterious dedication to the sonnets published in 1609 has encrypted the names of the love child and his parents, their three mottos, and a clue as to the probable date of conception, "Twelfth Night" of 1573.

The term "Prince Tudor" was also used by Baconians who continued to follow the ideas of Owen and Gallup. In 1973 Margaret Barsi-Greene published I, Prince Tudor, wrote Shakespeare: an autobiography from his two ciphers in poetry and prose. This purported to be an autobiography written by Bacon hidden within his other writings. In 1992 the playwright Paula Fitzgerald adapted the book for the theatre. In 2006 Virginia M. Fellows, an admirer of Owen who had rediscovered his deciphering machine, published The Shakespeare Code promoting Owen's views. In the following year, another variation on the theory was created by Robert Nield in Breaking the Shakespeare Codes (2007). He adapted elements of Allen's "William Hughes" theory and Owen's model, arguing that anagrams in the sonnets and other works actually point to a "William Hastings", who was the real Shakespeare and also the illegitimate child of Elizabeth and Leicester.