THE GREAT SHAKESPEARE HOAX

The logic of the de Vere case was so compelling that immediately Sir George Greenwood, who had been anti-Stratfordian for 30 years but didn’t believe Francis Bacon was Shakespeare, jumped on the de Vere bandwagon. So did a remarkable group of “amateur” researchers who burst onto the authorship scene and rapidly became Oxfordian giants, stimulated by Looney’s “Shakespeare” Identified in Edward de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford -- Percy Allen, B. R. Ward and his son, B. M. Ward in England plus the American who joined the English research group, Eva Turner Clark. The twenty years from 1920 to 1940 represented an exciting time for Oxfordians as a cascade of authorship discoveries exceeded every expectation in building the case for Edward de Vere as Shakespeare. It was a stunningly productive era, enhanced by the fact that Edward de Vere was virtually unknown to the world and had never been researched before. The field was wide open and Oxfordian investigators did not disappoint. Oxfordians had every right to feel confident that the sheer weight of new circumstantial evidence would force Stratfordians to capitulate and leap on the Oxfordian bandwagon. But this was years before the term “conventional wisdom” was invented by John Kenneth Galbraith, and further years before the enigmas of paradigm shift phenomena were enunciated by Thomas Kuhn and his colleagues, who emphasized the powerful resistance to change by guilds in power. The first two generations of Oxfordians were, therefore, quite mystified when the Stratfordians, rather than “yielding” to the new powerful authorship evidence put forth in Oxfordian articles and books, fought back vigorously with attack-mode strategies, including denigration and ad hominem assaults, rather than countering with one iota of logic or new evidence in favor of their Stratford man. Even more strongly did the academic professorial guild in all universities in England and the United States forbid any authorship research at all. Strict penalties ensued for those who defied this guild edict -- all very understandable in the light of conventional wisdom and paradigm shift sociology which evolved in the last half century but quite puzzling to those imbued with the doctrine that truth should reign supreme, especially in a university setting. What still surprises and mystifies many Oxfordians is how such head-in-the-sand Stratfordian strategies have actually succeeded in the 90 years since Edward de Vere was brought out of historical darkness and anonymity. The “Strats” have won the overall battle since 1920 despite the overwhelmingly powerful Oxfordian case. Ninety-nine percent of Professors of English in the United States and England are committed Stratfordians despite their evidence-impoverished case which has not improved in four centuries. In addition, always a sore point to Oxfordians who spend the majority of their free time on the authorship question, such academicians believe themselves to be Shakespeare authorship experts even though they make no effort to keep up with authorship literature and are forbidden by their academic guild from engaging in authorship research. Professors of English, whether from Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale or Slippery Rock, are 100% convinced that their Stratford Man is Shakespeare, so why waste time with further research on the question? After all, do geologists still do research on whether Planet Earth is round or flat?! Oxfordians have lost the authorship battle for three generations -- a long time for both old and new Oxfordians. One of the Series Editors has lived through much of it, being a second generation Oxfordian who has been a committed follower of Edward de Vere for 64 years. In the light of powerful research discoveries in recent decades, we Oxfordians are supremely confident that we will eventually win the authorship war, so overwhelming is the circumstantial case in favor of Edward de Vere and so impoverished the case for the illiterate Stratford Man. But the question is, “When?” Some Oxfordians, including the two Editors, believe we already have incontrovertible proof of de Vere being Shakespeare -- a true smoking gun which will be elucidated in future volumes. Our time for a paradigm shift will come but in the meantime we realize the Vast Power of Conventional Wisdom and the incredible inertia and resistance to change embodied in the normal human spirit. As Winston Churchill said, “I don’t like my myths tampered with!” When the shift does occur, the world will shake their heads in utter disbelief that so improbable and absurd a candidate as Shaksper of Stratford could have held sway for so long -- more than 400 years -- in the minds of so many of our best and brightest professors. A truly incredible scenario, almost beyond comprehension to non-Stratfordians.