I'm disappointed that this newsletter uses the spelling "Shakespeare" throughout to refer to the man from Stratford, when the Stratford parish register shows that his family name name was consistently spelled "Shakspere," or close variants, and never "Shakespeare." (see A.J. Pointon's "The Man who was Never Shakespeare, and the first chapter of "Shakespeare Beyond Doubt?" Shahan and Waugh, eds). Even Strats admitted this until around 2016, when they began erasing the name "Shakspere." This feeds the Stratfordian narrative that "of course Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare," which is part of their strategy for making us look like fools. It is strategic malpractice to play right into their hands this way.
The evidence is clear that the Stratford man's name was spelled 'Shakspere,' not 'Shakespeare,' and your response indicates that you know this is true and do not contest it, but you consider truth to be less important than "inclusivity," meaning conformity, which is what Stratfordianism is all about. So much for the notion that the SAT is devoted to truth while Stratfordians are not. In the name of "editorial inclusivity," you are fine with misleading your readers. Shame on you!
Anti-Stratfordians have made many powerful arguments over the years, but the notion Shakespeare spelled his name one way--and the title pages spelled Shakespeare another way--is indisputably a myth. Even the first title page of a play to bear his name (LLL in 1598) is W. Shakespere (no hyphen, no 2nd 'a'), and Stratford's name is spelled "Shakespeare" on his coat of arms--which uses a "spear" in the crest, undoubtedly confirming the meaning and spelling of the 2nd syllable. There's 40 records on EEBO of the literary Shakespeare being spelled Shaksp* -- with no "e" after Shak. The fact is spelling was not standardized at the time --and all authors with two syllables suffered variations in spelling of their names on their pages. Yes, the old family name was spelled Shakspere--because that was the Middle English spelling of Shakespeare. But in Early Modern English this spelling evolved. Here's more on the evolution of the spelling of Shakspere to Shakespeare:
William Camden provided a helpful etymology of English surnames, which of course were not an arbitrary group of letters shoved together but often derived from professions, regions, or other notable experiences or associations with some particular ancestor. Quoting Camden:
Some from that which they commonly carried, as Palmer, that is, Pilgrime, for that they carried Palme when they returned from Hierusalem. Long-sword, Broad-speare, Fortescu, that is, Strong-shield, and in some such respect, Breake-speare, Shake-Speare, Shotbolt, Wagstaffe, Bagot, in the old Norman…. [Hyphens Camden’s]
Notice the hyphens in these names. Elsewhere Camden refers to an ancestor of Blethin Broad-Spear, and again the hyphen is Camden’s. This confirms two important points: that the hyphen does not necessarily refer to a pen-name and that the hyphen especially does not mean this with Shake-speare, which is an authentic English name.
Moreover, language, pronunciation, and spelling evolved over the centuries, and the ancestral versions of modern English are classified according to linguistic eras and referred to as “Old English,” “Middle English,” “Early Modern,” etc. According to OED, the word shake derives from the Middle English schak. And spellings from the era included shak and shack. Similarly, “spear” from the Old English, “spere.” Thus, Shakspere or Shackspere were Middle English spellings of Shakespeare and evoked the same image: the shaking of a spear. Now, here are indisputable examples of the actor from Stratford being spelled "Shakespeare"
1) “Wllm Kempe, Willm Shakespeare, & Richarde Burbage” received 20 pounds for two plays “Christmas Last” in 1595.
2) Burbage and Kemp on Stage in “The Return from Parnassus,”
Kempe says to Burbage: "Few of the vniuersity pen plaies well, they smell too much of that writer Ouid, and that writer Metamorphosis, and talke too much of Proserpina & Iuppiter. Why heres our fellow Shakespeare puts them all downe, I and Ben Ionson too. O that Ben Ionson is a pestilent fellow, he brought vp Horace giuing the Poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath giuen him a purge that made him beray his credit."
That’s Shakespeare, the uneducated actor-fellow of Burbage and Kempe.
3) Fine levied on Purchase of New Place on “Shakespeare”
4) The Royal Warrant issued for a Patent authorizing the theatrical company is spelled “Shakespeare.”
5) The ignorant, conceited, play-stealing, country-actor-playwright who is introduced in the beginning of “Groatsworth of Wit” as thundering Seneca upon the stage is later associated with a line from 3 Henry VI and referred to as “Shake-Scene.” –That’s Shake HYPHEN Scene. Ben Jonson, in his ode, also refers to the Shakespeare’s thundering of Senecan tragedies; “Call forth... hm of Cordova dead [Seneca] To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,/ And SHAKE A STAGE.”
6) The coat of arms the name is spelled Shakespeare – and the emblem is a SPEAR. So that’s SHAKE a Stage, Shake-Scene and SPEARE referring to the Stratford actor.
7) Brooke claimed certain people were not entitled to bear arms, including ‘William Shakespeare,’ and included a sketch of the Shakespeare arms, captioned ‘Shakespear ye Player by Garter.
7) Principal Tragedians listed in Jonson's works "This Tragoedie vvas first acted, in the yeere 1603. By the Kings Maiesties SERVANTS.
The principall Tragoedians were,
RIC. BVRBADGE.
AVG. PHILIPS.
WILL. SLY.
IOH. LOWIN.
WILL. SHAKE-SPEARE.
IOH. HEMINGS.
HEN. CONDEL.
ALEX. COOKE." That's "SHake HYPHEN Speare"
8) In 1605, the lease of a moiety of the tithes of Stratford” – both Shakespear and Shakespeare.
9) In another document concerning the Stratford tithes, “the name occurs once as Shakespere, once as Shakspeare, and thrice as Shakespeare.”
10) On 31 Mar 1613, Earl of Rutland's steward referred to a payment 'to Mr Shakespeare in gold about my lord's impresa, 44s.; to Richard Burbage for painting and making it, in gold, 44s.'
9) The deed of bargain and sale of Blackfriars 1613 is both Shakspeare and Shakespeare;
10) The mortgage deed on Blackfriars: Shakespeare.
11) 1615 Bill of Complaint is to Shakespeare
12) The final signature in the will is Shakspeare.
13) His grave, FF dedication, etc. all Shakespeare.
Everyone’s name at the time had spelling variations –even when written by the same person. Even North’s appears as Northe occasionally. And Wriothsely's name appeared differently almost every time someone tried to spell it. You will see this through the plays too --where the same character's name has different spellings. Ben Jonson's name is spelled in various ways. Christopher Marlowe's name was spelled in various ways, etc., etc., etc., Spelling was not standardized at the time.
(Continuation: Part 3 -- see Part 2 and initial comment below)
DM: “The ignorant, conceited, play-stealing, country-actor-playwright who is introduced in the beginning of ‘Groatsworth of Wit’ as thundering Seneca upon the stage is later associated with a line from 3 Henry VI and referred to as ‘Shake-Scene.’ –That’s Shake HYPHEN Scene.”
JS: That’s the orthodox position because Stratfordians are desperate for any evidence that places their man in London in the early 1990s. This is all they have, and it is totally wrong. The name Shakespeare, hyphenated or not, was unknown when Groatsworth appeared in 1592, so no one would have associated him with Shake-scene, or with the play 3 Henry VI, not yet published. A more likely theory is that “Shake-scene” is the actor Edward Alleyn, known for bombastic performances and for inserting lines into plays. And he had acted in a production of 3 Henry VI. For a recent treatment of the topic, read “Shakespeare Was Woman” by Elizabeth Winkler.
DM: “Principal Tragedians listed in Jonson's works: ‘This Tragoedie vvas first acted, in the yeere 1603. By the Kings Maiesties SERVANTS. The principall Tragoedians were, RIC. BVRBADGE. AVG. PHILIPS. WILL. SLY. IOH. LOWIN. WILL. SHAKE-SPEARE. IOH. HEMINGS. HEN. CONDEL. ALEX. COOKE.’ That's ‘Shake HYPHEN Speare.”
JS: Yes, and in 2016 Professor Richard Waugaman, M.D., made this observation about it: “In the folio of his collected Workes (1616), Ben Jonson uses the spelling format Capital-hyphen-Capital for the names of the following four comic characters: Brane-Worm, Shoo-Maker, La-Foole and Love-Wit. He also includes epigrams to ‘Court-Parrat’ and ‘Poet-Ape,’ and atop a cast list the name ‘Shake-Speare.’ The name ‘Shakespeare’ is atop another cast list, as if to contrast it with the odd ‘Shake-Speare’ spelling. The first six are transparently invented names, which seems to imply that ‘Shake-Speare’ is also invented. Stratfordians have never been able to explain why the author’s name was often hyphenated. Many think the hyphenation suggests it was a pseudonym, as Jonson’s spelling pattern also suggests.”
DM: “His grave, FF dedication, etc. all Shakespeare.”
JS: No, there is no name on Mr. Shakspere’s “grave” in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford, just six lines of embarrassing doggerel verse on a plain slab. The name in the inscription on the monument in the wall next to it is not Shakespeare, but “Shakspeare,” without a medial “e.”
The front matter to the First Folio can’t be considered definitive evidence for Mr. Shakspere because of the many obvious anomalies, warnings and outright falsehoods that it contains. For a definitive treatment, see "A 400th Anniversary Essay on the Fishiness of the First Folio" at the website of the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition (SAC) at www.DoubtAboutWill.org.
Finally, I would call your attention to a late occurrence of the name that you did not include in your list – one that has much greater evidentiary value than any of those you mentioned because it was made by someone in London who certainly knew Mr. Shakspere well over a long period, and who included the name in a legal document required by law to be truthful. It is described as follows in “Beyond Reasonable Doubt, Part 1,” at the website of the SAC:
“In 1635, Cuthbert Burbage, brother of famous actor Richard Burbage, petitioned Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, in a legal case. The Burbages were the founder-investors in the Globe Theatre, and Mr. Shakspere had been a shareholder. Cuthbert Burbage clearly knew the role that Shakspere played in the company. In his petition, Burbage names the investors in the Globe Theatre. He mentions “Shakspere,” and “Shakspeare,” as one of several “deserving men” and among several “men players.” From these terms, it does not sound like Burbage thought of this “Shakspere” as the famous playwright William Shakespeare, but as just another member of the acting company.
“By 1635…, the name “Shakespeare” was well known, and it would always have been spelled that way in print. Further, the man to whom Cuthbert was writing – Philip Herbert – was a dedicatee, with his brother William, of [the first two] published folios! If Cuthbert Burbage knew that the “deserving man” and “man player” was also their playwright, he would have (1) spelled his name “Shakespeare,” and (2) mentioned that this Shakespeare was the poet-dramatist immortalized in the folios…. The fact that he didn’t do so suggests that he knew his fellow actor-shareholder was not the dramatist William Shakespeare.”
When "Shakespeare Beyond Doubt" (Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells, eds) appeared in 2013, Wells claimed in Chapter 7 to have included “all” references to Shakespeare from 1593 to 1642. In fact, Wells failed to mention the 1635 petition…. This could hardly have been an oversight. So here we have strong evidence that Mr. Shakspere was not the author, and a leading Stratfordian omits it from a chapter in which he said he included all of them!”
In addition to the example above of Wells falsifying evidence, here he is caught concealing. It is likely no coincidence that in both cases the evidence falsified or concealed is damning to the Stratfordian case.
In addition to knowing the role Shakspere played in the acting company, Cuthbert Burbage surely knew the correct spelling of his name, and so he reported it correctly in his petition. It is absurd to think he would have spelled it “Shakspere” and “Shakspeare” in a petition to Philip Herbert if the latter knew that he was Shakespeare, and he surely would have known. This is the best piece of evidence relating to the spelling issue, and it should finally settle it.
So, here we have smoking gun evidence that Mr. Shakspere was not our famous playwright, and his name was correctly spelled Shakspere and not Shakespeare. And this was in 1635, so what about the alleged "evolution" from Middle English to Early Modern English spelling? Does not seem to have happened in the case of William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon. He used the same spelling of his family name to the end, and those who knew him knew it.
Authorship doubters should stop referring to the Stratford man by the name "Shakespeare." There was no William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, only a Mr. William Shakspere. Stratfordians falsify the name in order to mislead the public, but we should not assist them. The first thing we doubters should say to newcomers to the issue is that the Stratford man’s name was NOT “Shakespeare.” It is true, and it's a real shocker that will get attention and open minds.
DM: “Even the first title page of a play to bear his name (LLL in 1598) is W. Shakespere (no hyphen, no 2nd 'a')”
JS: Yes, this is one of the anomalous cases Pointon mentioned, and it is not representative. The absence of a hyphen is irrelevant. The only thing it lacks is an “a” in the second syllable, which would not affect the pronunciation. But it does have a medial “e,” unlike any of the 37 examples of the Stratford man’s name in Pointon’s analysis. The medial “e” is key, implying that the first syllable would have been pronounced like “Shake,” versus “Shack” without it.
DM: “and Stratford's name is spelled "Shakespeare" on his coat of arms--which uses a ‘spear’ in the crest, undoubtedly confirming the meaning and spelling of the 2nd syllable.”
JS: Names did not appear on coats of arms, and Shakspere’s is not on his. Do you mean the notation “Shakespeare ye Player by Garter,” probably by Ralph Brooke in the Herald’s office, on the draft of the coat of arms submitted along with the application? There is no reason to think the notation was made by someone who knew how Shakspere spelled his name, and since spellings were not yet standardized it was probably written that way by someone who knew the spelling on the plays and poems. It’s not even clear when the notation was made. It may have been long after the application was submitted when Shakspere wasn’t around. Yes, the appearance of the spear does seem to confirm that meaning, but not the spelling.
DM: “There's 40 records on EEBO of the literary Shakespeare being spelled Shaksp* -- with no ‘e’ after Shak…. Yes, the old family name was spelled Shakspere--because that was the Middle English spelling of Shakespeare. But in Early Modern English this spelling evolved.
JS: There’s no reason to think the creators of those “40 records” knew the correct spelling. None of those “literary” spellings is on the works, and calling them “literary” is subjective. Yes, spellings weren’t yet standardized then, but there is a big difference between _others_ spelling a name various ways when spelling it phonetically, or as that other person prefers, and the person himself (especially a writer) not having a preferred spelling of his own name. Since spellings weren’t standardized, how do you account for the remarkable consistency in the two sets of spellings detailed above – for the Stratford man and the author – with Mr. Shakspere’s name never spelled “Shakespeare” and the author’s name never “Shakspere”? Appears to me that in both cases people were attempting to be consistent in the spellings. There’s no evidence of the spelling “evolving” that I can see within either of the two groups. They are two separate and distinct groups, but you want to say one evolved from the other.
DM: “The hyphen does not necessarily refer to a pen-name and … the hyphen especially does not mean this with Shake-speare, which is an authentic English name.”
JS: Mr. Shakspere’s name is never hyphenated in any of the entries in the Stratford parish register, and it is never hyphenated in any of his signatures. Can you give an example of Mr. Shakspere hyphenating his name, or of anyone who clearly knew him doing so in a context other than the works? Why are the hyphenated names only on the title pages of the works? Again, why the consistency within the two sets – all the hyphens in one, none in the other? And inserting a hyphen is not just a spelling variation. There is nothing phonetic about it. It seems purposeful. No, the hyphenated name does not prove that it was a pseudonym, but hyphenated names were rare then, and many hyphenated names were, in fact, pen names.
And in 2006, someone discovered an early reference to Shakespeare that strongly suggests it was, in fact, a pseudonym. Here is a description: “In 1624, the second edition of Thomas Vicars’ manual of rhetoric gave a list of excellent English poets: Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton and George Wither, but omitting the name William Shakespeare! Surely, he must have known of Shakespeare in 1624, after the publication of the First Folio. In a third edition (1628), Vicars corrected the omission by adding this sentence: “To these I believe should be added that famous poet who takes his name from ‘shaking’ and ‘spear’…” Here is a reference to Shakespeare that strongly implies the name is a made-up pen name. Vicars probably knew that the First Folio’s attribution was wrong and didn’t want to accept and reinforce it. So, he kept Shakespeare off the list in the 1624 edition the following year. By the time of the 1628 edition, he had devised a way to include Shakespeare while hinting that it was a pen name, but without assuming the risk of openly saying so. (Schurink, Fred “An unnoticed early reference to Shakespeare,” Notes and Queries, March 2006, 72-74).
DM: “Now, here are indisputable examples of the actor from Stratford being spelled ‘Shakespeare’ 1) ‘Wllm Kempe, Willm Shakespeare, & Richarde Burbage’ received 20 pounds for two plays ‘Christmas Last’ in 1595.”
JS: Yes, spellings weren’t standardized. The person who wrote it probably didn’t know how Mr. Shaksere spelled his name, and so he spelled it like the author’s name, which he knew. Most of the other 12 examples you offer can be accounted for in the same way – by the fact that the person writing the name (often a clerk) did not know how Mr. Shakspere spelled his name, and he was not present. So, they used a familiar spelling, which after the publication of Venus and Adonis (1593) and Lucrece (1594) was likely to be the “Shakespeare” spelling. This would have been the case especially in London, where the name had become famous. Unless the person clearly knew Mr. Shakspere, that can be assumed to have been the case. Even in the case of the play "Return from Parnassus," we don’t know if its anonymous author knew what he was talking about, or that he was not being misleading. It is, after all, a play. So I won’t address each of your examples, but only those which involve other explanations.
Dennis, I’m replying to your comment from 8/24 to my brief comment on 5/26, but I also wrote a longer piece on this topic that was published on 6/22, titled “A Name by any other spelling?” (https://whowroteshakespeare.substack.com/p/a-name-by-any-other-spelling). You may want to check it out. The first paragraph of that Guest Commentary reads, in part:
“The evidence shows that [the Stratford man’s] name was not ‘Shakespeare,’ but ‘Shakspere,’ and that there are few things in the authorship controversy so clearly supported by evidence…. This is based mainly on Professor A.J. Pointon’s book, "The Man Who Was Never Shakespeare" (2011). Space does not allow for a deep dive into details, but they are overwhelming. For example, not once is the name spelled ‘Shakespeare’ in any of twenty-six entries in Stratford’s parish records relating to him and his family. And as Bill Bryson pointed out [in his biography], he never used the name ‘Shakespeare’ in his life.”
You wrote: “The notion Shakespeare spelled his name one way--and the title pages spelled Shakespeare another way--is indisputably a myth.”
My reply: No, that is totally false; the documents clearly and consistently show otherwise. Pointon lists all 26 entries related to the Stratford man and his family in the Stratford parish register from the christening of a sister Joan (‘Jone Shakspere daughter of John Shakspere’) in 1558, to the burial of his grandson “Shakspere” (‘Shakspere fillius Tho. Quyny’), in 1617. All 26 entries also appear in the books of scholars E. K. Chambers and Sam Schoenbaum. In each case the spelling is either “Shakspere” (19 times), or a close variant: “Shaksper” (1), “Shagspere” (1), “Shackspeere” (1), “Shakspeare” (2), “Shaxspere” (3). (27 names because “Shakspere” appears twice in the first entry, shown above.) All five variants are consistent with phonetic spellings of “Shakspere.” It is also worth noting that both appearances of the “Shakspeare” variant occurred well after the name of the playwright had become famous.
In addition, there are the Stratford man’s six generally accepted signatures, each spelled differently, and none, including three on his will, is spelled the same as the author’s name. Nor is any of three appearances of the name in the body of the will spelled ”Shakespeare.” Finally, the name in the text of the Stratford monument is “Shakspeare,” with no medial “e.” That makes a total of 37 instances that clearly relate to him, and over which he or his family members presumably exercised control, with not even one of them spelled “Shakespeare.” This despite the name “Shakespeare” being famous during the final two decades of his life.
And when the Quinys honored him by naming a son after him after Shakspere died in 1616, was it spelled like the author’s name? Nope, it was spelled “Shaksper.” It boggles the mind. They were surely present for the infant’s christening and could say how it was to be spelled, and yet we’re to believe that in naming him after his grandfather they let the priest spell the name differently from the name for which his grandfather was allegedly famous? Not likely. So damning to the orthodox claim is this entry that the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, in its 2013 book "Shakespeare Beyond Doubt" (Paul Edmondson & Stanley Wells, eds) falsified the spelling, claiming that it is “Shakespeare,” in quotation marks, when it is clearly “Shaksper.” When one goes to the extent of falsifying evidence, it is because they know its implications.
There are two early cases of the name spelled “Shakespeare” in contexts that clearly relate to the Stratford man: (1) the 1595 payment to Richard Burbage, William Kempe and William Shakespeare for performances of plays by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men during the previous Christmas season, and (2) the 1597 document granting ownership of New Place in Stratford to “William Shakespeare.” First, keep in mind that both are outliers and unrepresentative of most other documents specific to the Stratford man. Second, both were written by clerks in the absence of the parties. Shakspere bought New Place from a recusant Catholic in hiding from the authorities, and neither party signed the document. The journal entry for the 1595 payment was made over two months after the fact, and some scholars question its validity. In both cases the clerks involved would have been familiar with the “Shakespeare” spelling, famous from the poems Venus and Adonis, and Lucrece, widely read by young literate men. Since spellings were not yet standardized, they probably used the spelling familiar to them.
In contrast to the consistent use of “Shakspere” or close variants in the vast majority of the official documents relating to Mr. Shakspere and his family, it is consistently “Shakespeare” or close variants on nearly all the published works. Here’s a summary of Pointon’s analysis:
The dedication to Venus and Adonis spelled the name “Shakespeare” in all five quarto and eight octavo editions. In Lucrece it was the same in the one quarto and five octavo editions. Nineteen plays appeared in various quarto editions before the First Folio appeared in 1623. Of these (fifty-two in total), sixteen were anonymous. For the other thirty-six, all dated 1598 to 1622, the author’s name appeared thirty-nine times, including three in their registrations. On nineteen of the thirty-nine, the name was “Shakespeare” and on fifteen “Shake-speare.” On the remaining five, it was “Shak-speare” twice and “Shakespere” three times. The name on the Sonnets was “Shake-speare,” and the same for the author of The Phoenix and Turtle. And of course, it’s spelled “Shakespeare” on the title page of and throughout the First Folio. “With this consistency,” Pointon writes, “the playwright’s name being spelt Shakespeare or Shake-speare 92 percent of the time (56 out of 61], and never Shakspere—it is nonsense to suppose … its spelling on the plays and poems was some enormous statistical aberration.”
It is therefore quite clear that, for anyone except the mathematically challenged, the idea that the Stratford man spelled his name one way, and the name on the works was spelled another way, far from being “indisputably a myth,” is a highly statistically significant FACT.
Correction: where I wrote 'Even Strats admitted this until around 2016,' I meant 1916. BTW, I do not mean to be too negative here. Lots of good stuff in this News Roundup, esp. Ros Barber's letter to Quillette in response to Oliver Kamm's outrageous attack on all authorship doubters.
I'm disappointed that this newsletter uses the spelling "Shakespeare" throughout to refer to the man from Stratford, when the Stratford parish register shows that his family name name was consistently spelled "Shakspere," or close variants, and never "Shakespeare." (see A.J. Pointon's "The Man who was Never Shakespeare, and the first chapter of "Shakespeare Beyond Doubt?" Shahan and Waugh, eds). Even Strats admitted this until around 2016, when they began erasing the name "Shakspere." This feeds the Stratfordian narrative that "of course Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare," which is part of their strategy for making us look like fools. It is strategic malpractice to play right into their hands this way.
Thank you for your comment. We have chosen to use the current popular spelling of Shakespeare as a matter of editorial inclusivity.
The evidence is clear that the Stratford man's name was spelled 'Shakspere,' not 'Shakespeare,' and your response indicates that you know this is true and do not contest it, but you consider truth to be less important than "inclusivity," meaning conformity, which is what Stratfordianism is all about. So much for the notion that the SAT is devoted to truth while Stratfordians are not. In the name of "editorial inclusivity," you are fine with misleading your readers. Shame on you!
Anti-Stratfordians have made many powerful arguments over the years, but the notion Shakespeare spelled his name one way--and the title pages spelled Shakespeare another way--is indisputably a myth. Even the first title page of a play to bear his name (LLL in 1598) is W. Shakespere (no hyphen, no 2nd 'a'), and Stratford's name is spelled "Shakespeare" on his coat of arms--which uses a "spear" in the crest, undoubtedly confirming the meaning and spelling of the 2nd syllable. There's 40 records on EEBO of the literary Shakespeare being spelled Shaksp* -- with no "e" after Shak. The fact is spelling was not standardized at the time --and all authors with two syllables suffered variations in spelling of their names on their pages. Yes, the old family name was spelled Shakspere--because that was the Middle English spelling of Shakespeare. But in Early Modern English this spelling evolved. Here's more on the evolution of the spelling of Shakspere to Shakespeare:
William Camden provided a helpful etymology of English surnames, which of course were not an arbitrary group of letters shoved together but often derived from professions, regions, or other notable experiences or associations with some particular ancestor. Quoting Camden:
Some from that which they commonly carried, as Palmer, that is, Pilgrime, for that they carried Palme when they returned from Hierusalem. Long-sword, Broad-speare, Fortescu, that is, Strong-shield, and in some such respect, Breake-speare, Shake-Speare, Shotbolt, Wagstaffe, Bagot, in the old Norman…. [Hyphens Camden’s]
Notice the hyphens in these names. Elsewhere Camden refers to an ancestor of Blethin Broad-Spear, and again the hyphen is Camden’s. This confirms two important points: that the hyphen does not necessarily refer to a pen-name and that the hyphen especially does not mean this with Shake-speare, which is an authentic English name.
Moreover, language, pronunciation, and spelling evolved over the centuries, and the ancestral versions of modern English are classified according to linguistic eras and referred to as “Old English,” “Middle English,” “Early Modern,” etc. According to OED, the word shake derives from the Middle English schak. And spellings from the era included shak and shack. Similarly, “spear” from the Old English, “spere.” Thus, Shakspere or Shackspere were Middle English spellings of Shakespeare and evoked the same image: the shaking of a spear. Now, here are indisputable examples of the actor from Stratford being spelled "Shakespeare"
1) “Wllm Kempe, Willm Shakespeare, & Richarde Burbage” received 20 pounds for two plays “Christmas Last” in 1595.
2) Burbage and Kemp on Stage in “The Return from Parnassus,”
Kempe says to Burbage: "Few of the vniuersity pen plaies well, they smell too much of that writer Ouid, and that writer Metamorphosis, and talke too much of Proserpina & Iuppiter. Why heres our fellow Shakespeare puts them all downe, I and Ben Ionson too. O that Ben Ionson is a pestilent fellow, he brought vp Horace giuing the Poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath giuen him a purge that made him beray his credit."
That’s Shakespeare, the uneducated actor-fellow of Burbage and Kempe.
3) Fine levied on Purchase of New Place on “Shakespeare”
4) The Royal Warrant issued for a Patent authorizing the theatrical company is spelled “Shakespeare.”
5) The ignorant, conceited, play-stealing, country-actor-playwright who is introduced in the beginning of “Groatsworth of Wit” as thundering Seneca upon the stage is later associated with a line from 3 Henry VI and referred to as “Shake-Scene.” –That’s Shake HYPHEN Scene. Ben Jonson, in his ode, also refers to the Shakespeare’s thundering of Senecan tragedies; “Call forth... hm of Cordova dead [Seneca] To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,/ And SHAKE A STAGE.”
6) The coat of arms the name is spelled Shakespeare – and the emblem is a SPEAR. So that’s SHAKE a Stage, Shake-Scene and SPEARE referring to the Stratford actor.
7) Brooke claimed certain people were not entitled to bear arms, including ‘William Shakespeare,’ and included a sketch of the Shakespeare arms, captioned ‘Shakespear ye Player by Garter.
7) Principal Tragedians listed in Jonson's works "This Tragoedie vvas first acted, in the yeere 1603. By the Kings Maiesties SERVANTS.
The principall Tragoedians were,
RIC. BVRBADGE.
AVG. PHILIPS.
WILL. SLY.
IOH. LOWIN.
WILL. SHAKE-SPEARE.
IOH. HEMINGS.
HEN. CONDEL.
ALEX. COOKE." That's "SHake HYPHEN Speare"
8) In 1605, the lease of a moiety of the tithes of Stratford” – both Shakespear and Shakespeare.
9) In another document concerning the Stratford tithes, “the name occurs once as Shakespere, once as Shakspeare, and thrice as Shakespeare.”
10) On 31 Mar 1613, Earl of Rutland's steward referred to a payment 'to Mr Shakespeare in gold about my lord's impresa, 44s.; to Richard Burbage for painting and making it, in gold, 44s.'
9) The deed of bargain and sale of Blackfriars 1613 is both Shakspeare and Shakespeare;
10) The mortgage deed on Blackfriars: Shakespeare.
11) 1615 Bill of Complaint is to Shakespeare
12) The final signature in the will is Shakspeare.
13) His grave, FF dedication, etc. all Shakespeare.
Everyone’s name at the time had spelling variations –even when written by the same person. Even North’s appears as Northe occasionally. And Wriothsely's name appeared differently almost every time someone tried to spell it. You will see this through the plays too --where the same character's name has different spellings. Ben Jonson's name is spelled in various ways. Christopher Marlowe's name was spelled in various ways, etc., etc., etc., Spelling was not standardized at the time.
(Continuation: Part 3 -- see Part 2 and initial comment below)
DM: “The ignorant, conceited, play-stealing, country-actor-playwright who is introduced in the beginning of ‘Groatsworth of Wit’ as thundering Seneca upon the stage is later associated with a line from 3 Henry VI and referred to as ‘Shake-Scene.’ –That’s Shake HYPHEN Scene.”
JS: That’s the orthodox position because Stratfordians are desperate for any evidence that places their man in London in the early 1990s. This is all they have, and it is totally wrong. The name Shakespeare, hyphenated or not, was unknown when Groatsworth appeared in 1592, so no one would have associated him with Shake-scene, or with the play 3 Henry VI, not yet published. A more likely theory is that “Shake-scene” is the actor Edward Alleyn, known for bombastic performances and for inserting lines into plays. And he had acted in a production of 3 Henry VI. For a recent treatment of the topic, read “Shakespeare Was Woman” by Elizabeth Winkler.
DM: “Principal Tragedians listed in Jonson's works: ‘This Tragoedie vvas first acted, in the yeere 1603. By the Kings Maiesties SERVANTS. The principall Tragoedians were, RIC. BVRBADGE. AVG. PHILIPS. WILL. SLY. IOH. LOWIN. WILL. SHAKE-SPEARE. IOH. HEMINGS. HEN. CONDEL. ALEX. COOKE.’ That's ‘Shake HYPHEN Speare.”
JS: Yes, and in 2016 Professor Richard Waugaman, M.D., made this observation about it: “In the folio of his collected Workes (1616), Ben Jonson uses the spelling format Capital-hyphen-Capital for the names of the following four comic characters: Brane-Worm, Shoo-Maker, La-Foole and Love-Wit. He also includes epigrams to ‘Court-Parrat’ and ‘Poet-Ape,’ and atop a cast list the name ‘Shake-Speare.’ The name ‘Shakespeare’ is atop another cast list, as if to contrast it with the odd ‘Shake-Speare’ spelling. The first six are transparently invented names, which seems to imply that ‘Shake-Speare’ is also invented. Stratfordians have never been able to explain why the author’s name was often hyphenated. Many think the hyphenation suggests it was a pseudonym, as Jonson’s spelling pattern also suggests.”
DM: “His grave, FF dedication, etc. all Shakespeare.”
JS: No, there is no name on Mr. Shakspere’s “grave” in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford, just six lines of embarrassing doggerel verse on a plain slab. The name in the inscription on the monument in the wall next to it is not Shakespeare, but “Shakspeare,” without a medial “e.”
The front matter to the First Folio can’t be considered definitive evidence for Mr. Shakspere because of the many obvious anomalies, warnings and outright falsehoods that it contains. For a definitive treatment, see "A 400th Anniversary Essay on the Fishiness of the First Folio" at the website of the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition (SAC) at www.DoubtAboutWill.org.
Finally, I would call your attention to a late occurrence of the name that you did not include in your list – one that has much greater evidentiary value than any of those you mentioned because it was made by someone in London who certainly knew Mr. Shakspere well over a long period, and who included the name in a legal document required by law to be truthful. It is described as follows in “Beyond Reasonable Doubt, Part 1,” at the website of the SAC:
“In 1635, Cuthbert Burbage, brother of famous actor Richard Burbage, petitioned Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, in a legal case. The Burbages were the founder-investors in the Globe Theatre, and Mr. Shakspere had been a shareholder. Cuthbert Burbage clearly knew the role that Shakspere played in the company. In his petition, Burbage names the investors in the Globe Theatre. He mentions “Shakspere,” and “Shakspeare,” as one of several “deserving men” and among several “men players.” From these terms, it does not sound like Burbage thought of this “Shakspere” as the famous playwright William Shakespeare, but as just another member of the acting company.
“By 1635…, the name “Shakespeare” was well known, and it would always have been spelled that way in print. Further, the man to whom Cuthbert was writing – Philip Herbert – was a dedicatee, with his brother William, of [the first two] published folios! If Cuthbert Burbage knew that the “deserving man” and “man player” was also their playwright, he would have (1) spelled his name “Shakespeare,” and (2) mentioned that this Shakespeare was the poet-dramatist immortalized in the folios…. The fact that he didn’t do so suggests that he knew his fellow actor-shareholder was not the dramatist William Shakespeare.”
When "Shakespeare Beyond Doubt" (Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells, eds) appeared in 2013, Wells claimed in Chapter 7 to have included “all” references to Shakespeare from 1593 to 1642. In fact, Wells failed to mention the 1635 petition…. This could hardly have been an oversight. So here we have strong evidence that Mr. Shakspere was not the author, and a leading Stratfordian omits it from a chapter in which he said he included all of them!”
In addition to the example above of Wells falsifying evidence, here he is caught concealing. It is likely no coincidence that in both cases the evidence falsified or concealed is damning to the Stratfordian case.
In addition to knowing the role Shakspere played in the acting company, Cuthbert Burbage surely knew the correct spelling of his name, and so he reported it correctly in his petition. It is absurd to think he would have spelled it “Shakspere” and “Shakspeare” in a petition to Philip Herbert if the latter knew that he was Shakespeare, and he surely would have known. This is the best piece of evidence relating to the spelling issue, and it should finally settle it.
So, here we have smoking gun evidence that Mr. Shakspere was not our famous playwright, and his name was correctly spelled Shakspere and not Shakespeare. And this was in 1635, so what about the alleged "evolution" from Middle English to Early Modern English spelling? Does not seem to have happened in the case of William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon. He used the same spelling of his family name to the end, and those who knew him knew it.
Authorship doubters should stop referring to the Stratford man by the name "Shakespeare." There was no William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, only a Mr. William Shakspere. Stratfordians falsify the name in order to mislead the public, but we should not assist them. The first thing we doubters should say to newcomers to the issue is that the Stratford man’s name was NOT “Shakespeare.” It is true, and it's a real shocker that will get attention and open minds.
(Continuation: Part 2)
You also wrote:
DM: “Even the first title page of a play to bear his name (LLL in 1598) is W. Shakespere (no hyphen, no 2nd 'a')”
JS: Yes, this is one of the anomalous cases Pointon mentioned, and it is not representative. The absence of a hyphen is irrelevant. The only thing it lacks is an “a” in the second syllable, which would not affect the pronunciation. But it does have a medial “e,” unlike any of the 37 examples of the Stratford man’s name in Pointon’s analysis. The medial “e” is key, implying that the first syllable would have been pronounced like “Shake,” versus “Shack” without it.
DM: “and Stratford's name is spelled "Shakespeare" on his coat of arms--which uses a ‘spear’ in the crest, undoubtedly confirming the meaning and spelling of the 2nd syllable.”
JS: Names did not appear on coats of arms, and Shakspere’s is not on his. Do you mean the notation “Shakespeare ye Player by Garter,” probably by Ralph Brooke in the Herald’s office, on the draft of the coat of arms submitted along with the application? There is no reason to think the notation was made by someone who knew how Shakspere spelled his name, and since spellings were not yet standardized it was probably written that way by someone who knew the spelling on the plays and poems. It’s not even clear when the notation was made. It may have been long after the application was submitted when Shakspere wasn’t around. Yes, the appearance of the spear does seem to confirm that meaning, but not the spelling.
DM: “There's 40 records on EEBO of the literary Shakespeare being spelled Shaksp* -- with no ‘e’ after Shak…. Yes, the old family name was spelled Shakspere--because that was the Middle English spelling of Shakespeare. But in Early Modern English this spelling evolved.
JS: There’s no reason to think the creators of those “40 records” knew the correct spelling. None of those “literary” spellings is on the works, and calling them “literary” is subjective. Yes, spellings weren’t yet standardized then, but there is a big difference between _others_ spelling a name various ways when spelling it phonetically, or as that other person prefers, and the person himself (especially a writer) not having a preferred spelling of his own name. Since spellings weren’t standardized, how do you account for the remarkable consistency in the two sets of spellings detailed above – for the Stratford man and the author – with Mr. Shakspere’s name never spelled “Shakespeare” and the author’s name never “Shakspere”? Appears to me that in both cases people were attempting to be consistent in the spellings. There’s no evidence of the spelling “evolving” that I can see within either of the two groups. They are two separate and distinct groups, but you want to say one evolved from the other.
DM: “The hyphen does not necessarily refer to a pen-name and … the hyphen especially does not mean this with Shake-speare, which is an authentic English name.”
JS: Mr. Shakspere’s name is never hyphenated in any of the entries in the Stratford parish register, and it is never hyphenated in any of his signatures. Can you give an example of Mr. Shakspere hyphenating his name, or of anyone who clearly knew him doing so in a context other than the works? Why are the hyphenated names only on the title pages of the works? Again, why the consistency within the two sets – all the hyphens in one, none in the other? And inserting a hyphen is not just a spelling variation. There is nothing phonetic about it. It seems purposeful. No, the hyphenated name does not prove that it was a pseudonym, but hyphenated names were rare then, and many hyphenated names were, in fact, pen names.
And in 2006, someone discovered an early reference to Shakespeare that strongly suggests it was, in fact, a pseudonym. Here is a description: “In 1624, the second edition of Thomas Vicars’ manual of rhetoric gave a list of excellent English poets: Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton and George Wither, but omitting the name William Shakespeare! Surely, he must have known of Shakespeare in 1624, after the publication of the First Folio. In a third edition (1628), Vicars corrected the omission by adding this sentence: “To these I believe should be added that famous poet who takes his name from ‘shaking’ and ‘spear’…” Here is a reference to Shakespeare that strongly implies the name is a made-up pen name. Vicars probably knew that the First Folio’s attribution was wrong and didn’t want to accept and reinforce it. So, he kept Shakespeare off the list in the 1624 edition the following year. By the time of the 1628 edition, he had devised a way to include Shakespeare while hinting that it was a pen name, but without assuming the risk of openly saying so. (Schurink, Fred “An unnoticed early reference to Shakespeare,” Notes and Queries, March 2006, 72-74).
DM: “Now, here are indisputable examples of the actor from Stratford being spelled ‘Shakespeare’ 1) ‘Wllm Kempe, Willm Shakespeare, & Richarde Burbage’ received 20 pounds for two plays ‘Christmas Last’ in 1595.”
JS: Yes, spellings weren’t standardized. The person who wrote it probably didn’t know how Mr. Shaksere spelled his name, and so he spelled it like the author’s name, which he knew. Most of the other 12 examples you offer can be accounted for in the same way – by the fact that the person writing the name (often a clerk) did not know how Mr. Shakspere spelled his name, and he was not present. So, they used a familiar spelling, which after the publication of Venus and Adonis (1593) and Lucrece (1594) was likely to be the “Shakespeare” spelling. This would have been the case especially in London, where the name had become famous. Unless the person clearly knew Mr. Shakspere, that can be assumed to have been the case. Even in the case of the play "Return from Parnassus," we don’t know if its anonymous author knew what he was talking about, or that he was not being misleading. It is, after all, a play. So I won’t address each of your examples, but only those which involve other explanations.
(To be continued)
Dennis, I’m replying to your comment from 8/24 to my brief comment on 5/26, but I also wrote a longer piece on this topic that was published on 6/22, titled “A Name by any other spelling?” (https://whowroteshakespeare.substack.com/p/a-name-by-any-other-spelling). You may want to check it out. The first paragraph of that Guest Commentary reads, in part:
“The evidence shows that [the Stratford man’s] name was not ‘Shakespeare,’ but ‘Shakspere,’ and that there are few things in the authorship controversy so clearly supported by evidence…. This is based mainly on Professor A.J. Pointon’s book, "The Man Who Was Never Shakespeare" (2011). Space does not allow for a deep dive into details, but they are overwhelming. For example, not once is the name spelled ‘Shakespeare’ in any of twenty-six entries in Stratford’s parish records relating to him and his family. And as Bill Bryson pointed out [in his biography], he never used the name ‘Shakespeare’ in his life.”
You wrote: “The notion Shakespeare spelled his name one way--and the title pages spelled Shakespeare another way--is indisputably a myth.”
My reply: No, that is totally false; the documents clearly and consistently show otherwise. Pointon lists all 26 entries related to the Stratford man and his family in the Stratford parish register from the christening of a sister Joan (‘Jone Shakspere daughter of John Shakspere’) in 1558, to the burial of his grandson “Shakspere” (‘Shakspere fillius Tho. Quyny’), in 1617. All 26 entries also appear in the books of scholars E. K. Chambers and Sam Schoenbaum. In each case the spelling is either “Shakspere” (19 times), or a close variant: “Shaksper” (1), “Shagspere” (1), “Shackspeere” (1), “Shakspeare” (2), “Shaxspere” (3). (27 names because “Shakspere” appears twice in the first entry, shown above.) All five variants are consistent with phonetic spellings of “Shakspere.” It is also worth noting that both appearances of the “Shakspeare” variant occurred well after the name of the playwright had become famous.
In addition, there are the Stratford man’s six generally accepted signatures, each spelled differently, and none, including three on his will, is spelled the same as the author’s name. Nor is any of three appearances of the name in the body of the will spelled ”Shakespeare.” Finally, the name in the text of the Stratford monument is “Shakspeare,” with no medial “e.” That makes a total of 37 instances that clearly relate to him, and over which he or his family members presumably exercised control, with not even one of them spelled “Shakespeare.” This despite the name “Shakespeare” being famous during the final two decades of his life.
And when the Quinys honored him by naming a son after him after Shakspere died in 1616, was it spelled like the author’s name? Nope, it was spelled “Shaksper.” It boggles the mind. They were surely present for the infant’s christening and could say how it was to be spelled, and yet we’re to believe that in naming him after his grandfather they let the priest spell the name differently from the name for which his grandfather was allegedly famous? Not likely. So damning to the orthodox claim is this entry that the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, in its 2013 book "Shakespeare Beyond Doubt" (Paul Edmondson & Stanley Wells, eds) falsified the spelling, claiming that it is “Shakespeare,” in quotation marks, when it is clearly “Shaksper.” When one goes to the extent of falsifying evidence, it is because they know its implications.
There are two early cases of the name spelled “Shakespeare” in contexts that clearly relate to the Stratford man: (1) the 1595 payment to Richard Burbage, William Kempe and William Shakespeare for performances of plays by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men during the previous Christmas season, and (2) the 1597 document granting ownership of New Place in Stratford to “William Shakespeare.” First, keep in mind that both are outliers and unrepresentative of most other documents specific to the Stratford man. Second, both were written by clerks in the absence of the parties. Shakspere bought New Place from a recusant Catholic in hiding from the authorities, and neither party signed the document. The journal entry for the 1595 payment was made over two months after the fact, and some scholars question its validity. In both cases the clerks involved would have been familiar with the “Shakespeare” spelling, famous from the poems Venus and Adonis, and Lucrece, widely read by young literate men. Since spellings were not yet standardized, they probably used the spelling familiar to them.
In contrast to the consistent use of “Shakspere” or close variants in the vast majority of the official documents relating to Mr. Shakspere and his family, it is consistently “Shakespeare” or close variants on nearly all the published works. Here’s a summary of Pointon’s analysis:
The dedication to Venus and Adonis spelled the name “Shakespeare” in all five quarto and eight octavo editions. In Lucrece it was the same in the one quarto and five octavo editions. Nineteen plays appeared in various quarto editions before the First Folio appeared in 1623. Of these (fifty-two in total), sixteen were anonymous. For the other thirty-six, all dated 1598 to 1622, the author’s name appeared thirty-nine times, including three in their registrations. On nineteen of the thirty-nine, the name was “Shakespeare” and on fifteen “Shake-speare.” On the remaining five, it was “Shak-speare” twice and “Shakespere” three times. The name on the Sonnets was “Shake-speare,” and the same for the author of The Phoenix and Turtle. And of course, it’s spelled “Shakespeare” on the title page of and throughout the First Folio. “With this consistency,” Pointon writes, “the playwright’s name being spelt Shakespeare or Shake-speare 92 percent of the time (56 out of 61], and never Shakspere—it is nonsense to suppose … its spelling on the plays and poems was some enormous statistical aberration.”
It is therefore quite clear that, for anyone except the mathematically challenged, the idea that the Stratford man spelled his name one way, and the name on the works was spelled another way, far from being “indisputably a myth,” is a highly statistically significant FACT.
(To be continued)
Correction: where I wrote 'Even Strats admitted this until around 2016,' I meant 1916. BTW, I do not mean to be too negative here. Lots of good stuff in this News Roundup, esp. Ros Barber's letter to Quillette in response to Oliver Kamm's outrageous attack on all authorship doubters.