The Companion to Shaker of the Speare: The Francis Bacon Story [Hardcover]

This book complements the fact-based novel "Shaker of The Speare: The Francis Bacon Story", by providing arguments, evidence and references for the novel's unorthodox storyline - in particular Bacon's role as the natural son of Queen Elizabeth and author of the Shakespeare works. It can be read independently, or, preferably, in conjunction with the novel.

Many readers will be especially interested in the arguments for Bacon as author of the Shakespeare works. They are indeed many and varied - and almost overwhelming. To touch on just a couple briefly:

1)Four French courtier names used in Love's Labour's Lost, "Berowne, Dumane, Longavill and Boyet", were discovered in 1917 to be written, with almost exactly the same spelling, in Francis' brother Anthony's passport. Whoever wrote this play must have had access to Anthony Bacon's passport.

2)The Shakespeare Sonnets tell us that the Greek goddess Pallas Athena, known as "the shaker of the speare" was the author's muse. Hence the name Shake-Speare's Sonnets. In 1903, a poem dedicated to Francis Bacon by Jean de La Jessé, secretary to the Duke of Anjou, the brother of King Henry III, was found among Anthony Bacon's papers in an old archive. In it, La Jessé refers to Pallas Athena as Bacon's muse. It is well known that Queen Elizabeth sent Francis to visit the French court, where he met King Henry III and the Duke of Anjou, when he was just sixteen-years-old.

This is just an appetizer. There is much more!

Ross Jackson August 2005

J.T. Ross Jackson is a Canadian-born naturalized Danish citizen living in Copenhagen with his wife Hildur. They have three sons, Rolf, Thor and Frej. Ross earned his B.Sc. in Engineering Physics at Queen's University in Canada, and did post-graduate studies in the United States, where he received his M.S. in Industrial Management at Purdue University and his Ph.D. in Operations Research at Case Western Reserve University. What started as a visit to Denmark to get some international business experience in 1964 ended in a permanent move after he met Hildur. Most of his professional career has been as an independent management consultant, with a specialty in software development for financial institutions. In 1987, his long-standing interest in the environment and spirituality resulted in the founding, with Hildur and other Danish friends, of Gaia Trust - a charitable association that supports persons and organizations that are working for the transition to a sustainable planet. He has been chair of the group since that time. Gaia Trust's funds were earned from a commercial subsidiary, now sold off, which specialized in foreign exchange management, based on theories and software developed originally by Ross in the early 1980s.Gaia Trust's main project to date has been the establishment and support of GEN - the Global Ecovillage Network an international network of ecovillages, which are working models of sustainable living for the new millennium, integrating ecological, social and spiritual aspects into a holistic lifestyle.

"Shaker of the Speare; The Francis Bacon Story" is Ross' first novel. He has written two other books, on his spiritual journey and on why he supports the eco-village movement as an alternative to commercial globalisation.Ross is currently working on a book on why and how we must break away from the dominant neo-liberal economic system, which is systematically destroying both the environment and local communities across the world, while creating unacceptable and politically explosive inequities among world citizens. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Some of the most convincing evidence for the Bacon authorship is found in the hundreds of parallels in Bacon’s own works and the Shakespeare works, not only in their general philosophies, including changes of opinion on various topics, but right down to almost exact wording at times. We have looked at a few examples in connection with the Promus and the Essays. But there are several hundred other examples, well documented by Theobald, Reed, Smedley, Mathers, Johnson and others. Stratfordians discount these examples as “pure coincidence”. However, a few of them occur after Will Shaksper’s death, and cannot be explained away so nonchalantly. The Shakespeare Folio contains over 2000 new lines and at least as many amendments inserted by someone after Shaksper’s death in 1616. Shakespearean scholars do not question their authenticity, i.e. they have the unique mark of Shakespeare on them. Stratfordians are forced to claim that these changes were written before 1616, were in the control of the King’s Men (since Shakespeare makes no mention of them in his will), but for some unknown reason were not included in the quarto editions published between 1616 and 1623. Unfortunately for the Stratfordians, even that far-fetched supposition fails to explain some of the changes. Let us review a few of the most interesting ones here.

Coriolanus: This play, first printed in the 1623 Shakespeare Folio, contains lines demonstrating the author’s knowledge of the circulation of blood (Act.1, scene 1). The very words used by Shakespeare are often the same ones used by Bacon in his History of Life and Death and in his report on the experiments of William Harvey. But here is the crusher. The discovery of blood circulation by Harvey was first published in 1619 — three years after Will Shaksper’s death! Bacon knew Harvey personally and wrote about his work. Hamlet: It is well known that Bacon held the view that the moon controlled the tides until 1616, when he reversed his position in his treatise De Fluxu et Refluxu Maris. In all the editions of Hamlet prior to Shaksper’s death in 1616, the following lines showed that the author believed the lunar tides theory: The moist star, Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands, Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse. (i. 1. in 1604 edition) These lines were removed in the 1623 Shakespeare Folio. Why? And on whose authority, we might well ask?

When he published the Advancement of Learning in 1605, Bacon believed the widely held notion of the times that “everything that has motion has sense” (i.e. intelligence). So did the author of Hamlet, who has Polonius saying, in all editions of Hamlet prior to the 1623 Folio:

Sense, sure, you have,

Else could you not have motion. (iii. 4 in 1604 edition) Bacon changed his view by the time he published the enlarged Latin version of the Advancement — De Augmentis Scientarium — in 1623, in which he now declared the notion as untrue. The lines were simultaneously deleted from the 1623 Shakespeare Folio. Why? On whose authority? Shaksper had been dead for 7 years. King Henry IV: Judge Say is a character arrested and accused of various crimes and misdemeanours in this play. The 1623 Shakespeare Folio included a number of new lines in his speech defending himself, which were not present in any earlier editions, not even the latest one from 1619. In the revised speech, we can almost hear Bacon’s voice speaking to King James in the following lines, which were added by someone between 1619 and 1623: Justice with favour have I always done; Prayers and tears have moved me, gifts could never. When have I aught exacted at your hands, But to maintain the king, the realm, and you? Large gifts have I bestowed on learned clerks,

Because my book preferred me to the King. Who added these lines after 1619? Is there any rational explanation other than Bacon as author of King Henry IV? Othello: The 1623 Shakespeare Folio included 160 new lines in comparison with the 1622 quarto version, which was the only version printed after the play opened in 1610. One of the remarkable additions utilises the fact that the Bosphorus flows continuously in one direction, from East to West. Bacon, who studied this phenomenon, specifically mentions in De Fluxu et Refluxu Maris in 1616, that the Bosphorus tide never ebbs. He calls the two seas the Pontus and Propontis. The new lines in Othello: Like to the Pontic sea, Whose icy current and compulsive course Ne’er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on To the Propontic and the Hellespont. (iii. 3) It could certainly not have been Will Shaksper who added these lines, unless he rose from the grave. Furthermore, if he wrote the lines prior to his death and not after, why were they not included the year before in the 1622 edition of Othello? Henry VIII: In this historic play, Lord Chancellor Wolsey suffers a fate similar to Bacon’s and is forced to give up the Great Seal. Historical source material, which was easily accessible to any author, mentions that two lords collected the seal from Wolsey, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk. But in the 1623 Shakespeare Folio — the only printed version of this play — four persons collect the seal. The author writes. “Enter to Wolsey the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Earl of Surrey, and the Lord Chamberlain.” Shaksper would have had no reason to invent a historically incorrect version. But Bacon had a good reason. His Great Seal was collected by four persons: the Lord Treasurer (Suffolk), the Lord Steward, the Earl of Arundel, and the Lord Chamberlain. He was apparently sending us a subtle message.