Roger Manners,5th Earl of Rutland

ROGER MANNERS ..SONNET 85LXXXVMy tongue-tied Muse in MANNERS holds her still, While comments of your praise richly compiled, Reserve thy character with golden quill, And precious phrase by all the Muses filed. I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words, And like unlettered clerk still cry 'Amen' To every hymn that able spirit affords, In polished form of well-refined pen. Hearing you praised, I say ''tis so, 'tis true,' And to the most of praise add something more; But that is in my thought, whose love to you, Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before. Then others, for the breath of words respect, Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect... Roger Manners, 5th Earl of RutlandDates: 06.10.1576-26.06.1612 Background: One of the most well-educated and remarkably literate people of Elizabethan England. Master of Arts of Cambridge and Oxford Universities. Was a student at Padua University (Italy) for a while, studied law at Gray’s Inn. For some time, was under the tutelage of Sir Francis Bacon. Travelled extensively about Europe, visited the Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland, Northern Italy. Corresponded with European scholars.Famous for: His life was closely associated with the Pembrokes and Sidneys, with the Earl of Southampton, and the Earl of Essex. His platonic wife and, later, co-author was Elizabeth Sidney, an only daughter of the famous poet Sir Philip Sidney and step-daughter of the Earl of Essex. In spite of precarious state of health, the Earl of Rutland participated more than once in war on land and sea. Was actively involved in Essex’s rebellion and severely punished for that by Queen Elizabeth I. After the Queen’s death in 1603, the new monarch King James I sent him as his envoy on an honorary mission to the King of Denmark.The Case: This eccentric aristocrat enveloped his own person and his literary activities in mystery and secrecy. He never published anything in his own name, preferring to ascribe the authorship of his works to "live masks," i.e. semiliterate people like William Shakspere from Stratford-upon-Avon and Thomas Coryate from Odcombe."Roger was the word,but now Honest Tom Tell-troth puts down Roger,how?"(Ben Jonson). This was his, his wife’s and a few friends’ Grand Game, Theatre in Life.Today we finally have a multitude of positively established facts witnessing beyond any doubt to the Earl of Rutland’s direct connection with the Shakespeare oeuvre. For instance, the Belvoir Castle archives keep a variant of a chant from Twelfth Night written in the Earl of Rutland’s hand, and a unique record of the Castle’s steward about payment of money to Shakespeare.Poet and playwright Ben Jonson, who was well-acquainted with the Earl and Countess of Rutland, called them and their close circle "poets of the Belvoir Vale." The scene of some Shakespeare’s plays is laid in the very towns of Northern Italy that Rutland had earlier visited during his European travels. The exact and accurate Danish realities appeared in Hamlet only after the Earl’s trip to Denmark. Between the 1st and 2nd quarto of Hamlet, the author learned a few things about Danish names, Danish geography, and the Danish court at Elsinore. During this period, Rutland was an English ambassador to Denmark, and when he had studied at Padua University in 1596, two of his fellow students were named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Spooky, isn't it? Maybe Rutland did not write all the plays, but it sure seems like he wrote one of them. A little on the bizarre side, as these searches for the Shakespeare Identity go, “Sherlock Holmes” (celebrated author Conan Doyle), was brought in to examine the case for Rutland. He said much as others: that Shakespeare was of the nobility, Courtier, classically-educated, spoke French and Italian, was a lawyer and so on... and he had witnessed a great storm at sea: Rutland did, during the sea crossing on returning from Denmark. Visiting the ancestral Rutland home, Belvoir Castle, ‘Sherlock Holmes’ (Conan Doyle) pointed dramatically at the large wall painting of the young Rutland ... ”Shakespeare”, he declaimed.The mysterious "Shake-Speare" ceased his creative work at the very same time when Roger Manners, the 5th Earl of Rutland, and his wife passed away in 1612 (in quick succession one after the other). The First Folio was to be released in 1622, the 10th obit of the Earl and his platonic wife. The Second Folio was published in 1632, obviously to commemorate their 20th obit.MY WIFE AND CO-AUTHORElizabeth Sidney 1585-1612. Elizabeth Manners nee Sidney, Countess of Rutland.Elizabeth was the only surviving child of Sir Phillip Sidney, the poet, military hero and role model for Elizabethan men of letters. Sir Phillip Sidney died heroically fighting the Spanish in 1586 and his funeral, which was one of the major state events of Elizabethan England, gave him the status of a Protestant martyr. Elizabeth was also the grand-daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's master spy and intelligence chief, and step-daughter of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, the Queen's fractious favourite executed after his revolt in 1601.Elizabeth Sidney married Roger Manners 5th Earl of Rutland in 1599, shortly before he left England to take part in Essex's abortive campaign in Ireland. Roger also took part in the doomed fiasco of the Essex rebellion, and Elizabeth Manners was said to have been dismayed by the exile from court life which resulted from the punishment for Roger's part in the revolt. Her feelings seem to have placed a strain on the marriage which was noticed by Ben Jonson, Shakespeare's friend, colleague and rival playwright. Jonson wrote the first of three poems to her in 1600 The Epistle to the Countess of Rutland but he omitted the last verse about the imminent birth of a son to the couple from later editions of the poem after hearing that the Earl was in fact impotent.Queen Elizabeth died on 24th March 1603 and James VI of Scotland, the son of her executed cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, was proclaimed James I King of England, France, and Ireland. James crossed the border into England on the 6th April but because the plague had broken out in London he made a slow journey south. On the 10th of April James progressed to Roger and Elizabeth's seat of Belvoir Castle where he was to stay for two weeks. The success of this royal visit marked the restoration of the Earl's political fortunes after the debacle of the Essex revolt. He received a further mark of royal favour with his appointment as ambassador to Denmark where his job was to invest the Danish King Christian IV with the Order of the Garter and to convey gifts on the christening of his first son. This was an important diplomatic position because of the close links between the Danish and Scottish thrones, as in 1589 King James had married Christian's sister, Anne of Denmark.Roger Manners seems to have enjoyed his visit to the Danish court at Elsinore. The accountant John Brewer who accompanied the Earl on the trip records what almost seems to be a royal progress of the Earl's party, from Belvoir to Gravesend, by sea to Scarborough and then on to Copenhagen and Elsinore Castle, with lavish spending on food, entertainment, and munificent gifts to the poor at every place visited.The fact that the text of Hamlet was altered to make the description of Elsinore Castle more accurate, in the 1605 edition of the play published shortly after the Rutland visit, has led a few scholars to claim that Roger Manners actually was Shakespeare! Indeed a Russian Ilya Gililov has recently argued that both Roger and Elizabeth Manners were the real authors of Shakespeare's work, a claim which he bases upon his interpretation of the poem The Phoenix and The Turtle and its setting.Elizabeth gathered a group of poets and admirers around her, which as well as Ben Jonson which included Francis Beaumont a playwright working for Shakespeare's King's Men theatre company and Sir Thomas Overbury, who was to be the victim of the most notorious of Jacobean murder conspiracies.Elizabeth's artistic collaborations with Jonson culminated in her dancing in the Masque of Hymenaei, a spectacular court entertainment, written by Jonson and designed by Inigo Jones, that was staged in Whitehall in 1606 to celebrate the marriage of her step-brother Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, to Frances Howard, daughter of Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk. This marriage was designed by Queen Elizabeth's successor, James I and his minister, Robert Cecil, to be a way of reconciling the rival court factions divided by the Essex rebellion. However, the marriage was not a success and was to lead to divorce, scandal, and the Overbury murder. Elizabeth Manners died in August 1612 just two months after Roger Manners' death in June 1612.She was buried in Old St Paul's Cathedral near her father and grandfather. Her grave was destroyed in Great Fire of London in 1666 when the cathedral was burnt down, so that her effigy in St Mary's Bottesford remains as her only monument.NotesBooks claiming Roger Manners 5th Earl of Rutland's authorship of Shakespeare's plays: -Gililov, Ilya. The Shakespeare Game: The Mystery of the Great Phoenix. Translated by Gennady Bashkov et al., Agathon Press, 2003. An English translation of Gililov's book on Rutland.Porohovshikov, P. S. Shakespeare Unmasked. New York: Savoy, 1940. Argues that Rutland was Shakespeare because, among other things, his life parallels that of Shakespeare's life as presented through the PlaysSykes, Claud W. Alias William Shakespeare?. London: F. Aldor, 1947. Has Sherlock Holmes investigate the Shakespeare authorship question, and conclude that Rutland was the real author.