The “Matter” of Richard III: HENRY, Henrie, Henri: Which one?

                                                                            Fig. 1 

                                                                                          Blood Line

   From time to time, the desktop of my computer becomes almost unusable.  The clutter eats at me until I finally decide to do something about it.  In organizing folders for various files, I came across a jpeg at the bottom of one of my note pages for Richard III, taken from Act Four, Scene Three, where Queen Elizabeth, the wife of Edward IV and mother of the two brothers (the Princes in the Tower) allegedly murdered (i.e., in historical speculation) by their uncle Richard, confesses to having a daughter through an extra-marital affair.  An illegitimate child by a queen named Elizabeth.  Since there were no explanatory notes following the jpeg entry, I  arrayed the plaintext and searched for a letter-string(s) relevant to Edward de Vere.

   The two longest plays in the Shakespere canon are, respectively:  Hamlet (30,550 plus words)and Richard III (29,278 plus words).  I reasoned that since Hamlet is considered (from a more Oxfordian perspective) to reflect many references suggesting the play is strongly de Vere-autobiographical, that perhaps the same is true of Richard III.  Several letter-strings came through, but Array 13 (Fig. 1) is the most visually impressive.

 Before discussing Array 13, however, I want to turn to Act 5, Scene 5 (1) and the last 27 lines of the play.  I had a hunch I would find what I suspected might be encrypted there.  And it was.

   Seen all at once, Array 40 can be rather daunting, as there are several parts to two main clusters, or layers, if you will.  A better appreciation of Array 40 can be gained by viewing it in parts.  The first one (Fig. 2 below) presents the results I hoped would be revealed when I began the arraying of the plaintext.

                                                                          Fig. 2a

                                                                          Fig. 2b

The given name of “Henry”, “Henri” and “Henrie” occurs multiple times in letter-strings  in both the sonnets and in the plays.  However, “Henrie” is by far the most infrequent of the spellings I have found.  Noteworthy is William Shakespeare’s 1593 dedication to Henry Wriothesley of the poem, Venus and Adonis that spells the young earl’s name as “Henrie”:

                                                               Fig. 3  (Original Spelling)

     Although none of us at the present time know with any certainty all, or even most, of the rules that govern how or why any given encryption is placed within a plaintext, what  appears to be one of the rules, however, is that the location of the letter-string is important, and that the cluster of plaintext words in which it is found is significant as well.  The location lends credibility as to whether or not the letter-string was placed by intelligent design, or simply occurred by chance.

Returning to Fig. 2. above, then, the second ‘layer’ of Array 40 presents satellite support for the major vertical string:

                                                                                Fig. 4

     A relatively large body of speculation within Oxfordian research is the suspicion that sometime in or about 1573, Queen Elizabeth I and Edward de Vere had a child together, that this child was secreted away to the household of Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton, and was raised by them, and was thereafter known as Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton.  If this is accurate, then it lends support to another Oxfordian theory that this child later became the ‘fair youth’ in Shakespeare’s sonnets.  It is further noteworthy that the dedication and publication of Venus and Adonis is the first known mention, in print, of the name, “William Shakespeare”.

     Assuming for a moment all this happened, it then brings up the issue of whether or not Henry had any claim to the throne upon Elizabeth’s death.  Is the continuing presence of the letter-strings “Henry”, “Henri”, and “Henrie” in the sonnets and plays of Shakespeare chance occurrences, or are they documentation, placed deliberately in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of plaintexts in Shakespeare’s canon?

      Code support for this premise becomes stronger when the “H” above the “e” in Henrie’s name is highlighted.  “Heir” and “Henrie” are one fluid string, joined, with one word connected to or part of the other.  That they are one and the same. An “echo” (E.C.O.), so to speak.  That whoever placed the letter-string in Array 40 believed Henry to be Elizabeth’s heir.  Perhaps, perhaps not.  The answer to the question depends on the meaning of “heir”.  Heir to what?  The heir to Shakespeare’s affections?  “Heir” in the sense of being the inspiration of Venus and Adonis, Edward de Vere’s heir, the heir to the throne of England?

                                                                                  Fig. 5

The above cluster (although other syntaxes are possible) can read: “Henrie, W,H., heir, England.”     If Henrie Wriothesley would have become the/a successor to the throne, he would have been “Henry 9th”.  The “H” in “Henrie” begins (in Array 40) in Row 9.

Is there further support within the plaintext to amplify, underline, highlight, and/or   reinforce the notion that what is being seen in the cluster, is a meaningful message?

What about the secreting away, the hiding of the infant Henrie?

                                                                                  Fig. 6

One way of to read the cluster is:    “Elizabeth hid her owne boy (son), the true succeeder.” Or:       “Elizabeth hid (concealed/secreted away) her owne son (boy), her owne heir, and the true succeeder.”

  The message (if it indeed is intended to be one) makes sense within the theory that holds that Henrie Wriothesley is the Elizabeth’s true ‘succeeder’ (successor), as she is his mother, and that shortly after his birth, Elizabeth had Henrie placed in the care of the 2nd Earl of Southampton, and his wife, Mary Brown.

   The entire Array 40, then, becomes:

                                                                               Fig. 7

   Also note:  directly above the “D” in the bottom-to-top diagonal “HID” (DIH), and reading down from the “E” to the right of the “H” in “Henrie” are the vertical letters, “EO” connecting with the “D” in “HID”, and are directly below the horizontal plaintext, “the father”.  Furthermore, reading up from the “U” in “succeeder” are the letters, “IEO”, that connect to the horizontal letters, “ECO”.  The syntax of this mini-letter-string appears to state:  “E.O.” (Earle Oxenforde or Edward Oxenforde) is the father (E.C.O.) and true succeeder of  Elizabeth.  Both Elizabeth and I hid our son, Henrie, W.H., who is therefore also a direct heir to the throne of England.”  “IEO” can represent, “I, E.O.”, i.e., “I, Edward Oxenforde” (or “I, Earle Oxenforde).  “E.C.O.” was de Vere’s legal signature on many documents, especially those with legal import, and is Latin for:  “Edwardus Comes Oxoniensis” (Edward, our friend from Oxford).  Extrapolating these letters for an easier visual presentation, Array 40 looks like this:

                                                                          Fig. 8a                                                                          Fig. 8b

Hidden messages

     An anagram for “hidden messages” is “he’s made designs”.  The identity or identities of “he” is the obvious focus of this anagrammatical coincidence.

     As I have previously stated, revealing what ‘appear’ to be valid and mathematically supported encryptions with a skip-of-one equidistant letter sequence transposition cipher method, none of us who work with codes can say with certainty “The” rules.    However, “A” possible, even probable, rule increasingly becomes apparent the more we analyze why encryptions are located, or placed, where they happen to be in any given plaintext.

     “A” rule (from my perspective),  is the redundancy of the same words being used.  In the case of Act Five, Scene Five, “Henri” and “Henrie” (especially the former) appear throughout the plaintexts.  Due to the content in Array 40, for instance, the suggestion that Elizabeth, the ‘Virgin Queen”, had a son by Edward de Vere, that his name was Henrie, W.H., and that this child was placed by Elizabeth in the home of the 2nd Earl of Southampton to be raised by him and his wife, would be considered by those in authority, to be scurrilous at the least, and treasonous in all probability.  Any non royal person (s) (Ben Jonson, for instance) accused of the act might have been disemboweled, and his entrails set on fire before him while he was still alive.  If one was a member of the royalty, s/he may easily have been beheaded.

    Another reason for encoding sensitive information may also have been to conceal the name or names of the encoders embedded in plaintexts.  Especially one ennobled or a member of the court.  Therefore, only a privileged few would have access both to be able to use ciphers and/or codes in corresponding to one another, but to protect, not just themselves, but their family as well.

     As will be demonstrated throughout the discussion of codes in Shakespeare’s Bones, from the sonnets and plays, as well as from others, a single letter-string, such as “Vere”, “E. Vere” and “E. de Vere”, to mention but a few, is clearly a “signature”, much in the same manner an artist signs his paintings or sculptures, only doing so, out of necessity, in a cryptical way.

     Again, another reason for letter-string word redundancy is to make sure a message is received. In the event one letter-string goes unfound, placement in another array (s) can serve as a backup.  Furthermore, a lengthier message may have been broken into discrete but integral parts, placed in different arrays so as to made the encrypting somewhat more easy to manipulate.  Hence, so the theory goes, such varied spellings of words in a given plaintext is a clue to the presence of an encoding.  Elizabethan rules for grammar and spelling were not yet developed, and yielded greater opportunity for such manipulation.  For example, “he” could become “hee”, or “old” become “olde” by the addition or subtraction of a single letter.  Quite often in Elizabethan writing, varied spellings for the same word appear in the same plaintext, and are often near each other.  This is not to say that all strange-to-us spellings in a plaintext is the certain mark of the presence of a coded message; only that it is possible.  At the same time, the more acceptable to a modern reader the spelling and grammar becomes, does not mean there is no encryption, but that this, too, is a possibility.

     For example, notice the “W.H.” placed in the plaintext horizontal adjacent to the “e” in “eirneh” in the passage in Act Five, Scene Five (see Array 40, Fig. 7).  I took this as a clue to the presence of a supportive letter-string somewhere in the last 27 lines of the play.  I believe the “Henrie” in question refers to Henrie Wriothesley (often referred to as “W.H.”).  I reasoned that since “Wriothesley” has eleven letters, that the “W.H.” makes for a full letter-count of thirteen.  This is undisputably not a scientific approach in any pure sense, but, since Shakespeare made heavy use in the canon with number play as well as verbal play, I had a hunch.  I thought it reasonable to look at Array 13 to see if the word “Henri”, “Henrie”, or “Henry” could be found in a letter-string:

                                                                                Fig. 9

Satellite (cluster) support for “HENRI” (see Fig. J below) includes:  1) “W.H.” = Henry Wriothesley;  2) “E.C.O” = Edwardus Comes Oxoniensis (Edward de Vere, our friend from Oxford, de Vere’s Latin signature);  3) “I, E.O.” = “I, Earle Oxford”;  4) “SON (of) E.C.O.“;  5) “HEIR“;  and 6) “VEIL” = hidden, concealed, veiled.

Note as well that if the two diagonal letters extending from “VEIL” are added (“A” and “H”) the diagonal letter-string reads:  “Hal, concealed”, Hal, of course is a diminutive form for “Henry”:

                                                                         Fig. 10

The encryption can be read as:  “I, Earle Oxford, Henrie (W. H.), the concealed son of Edward de Vere (E.C.O.), and heir (to the throne of England).”

                                          Slings and Arrows

   When I first began looking at Richard III and its emphasis and focus on the political intrigue between the two factions of the Plantagenet family (the War of the Roses), and who would be victorious, one of my attractions was a Queen named Elizabeth, and one of her sons named Edward.  Since the thrust of my work thus far is an Oxfordian and/or Group Authorship perspective, I felt if Edward de Vere wrote any of the works attributed to the Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, I should be able to find coding evidence within his works.  I wanted to see if both or either  “Vere” and/or “Henry” were hidden (encoded) within the plaintext as letter-strings.

   In the opening lines of the play, Richard, Duke of Gloucester and future King of England, introduces himself to the audience with regard to his plans (i.e., plots, treacheries, dangerous inductions, subtleties, falsities, libels) to usurp the throne, as well as to define his character beyond any shadow of a doubt:  “I am determined to prove a villain (Internet Shakespeare Editions, 1623 First Folio:  1.1. 3 – 46).”

In Array 72, I found the following:

                                                                               Array 72                                                                                Fig. 11

The “W.H.”, “veil”, “O (Oxford)” “the King”, and the “see my shadow in the sunne” with its word play on “son”, were enough to see if any further reference would be made in the concluding lines of the play.  As seen at the beginning of this discussion, this is borne out in Array 72.  As to whose “shadow” is mentioned (assuming “shadow’ is a metaphor for “son”), the 1597 Quarto 1 version (sometimes referred to as the Bad Quarto of Richard III) had the following letter-string in the same line set:

                                                                        Array 73                                                                            

                                                                           Fig. 12

At this point, it began to dawn on me that perhaps one set of lines was pointing to another, and that the density of  “Henri”s (or “Henrie”) was more than just a significant letter-string, but that there might be more to it.  Was I stumbling upon a of kind of code flow chart of sorts?  The tipping point for me was in Array 40, lines 3871 – 3872 (1623 First Folio, 5.5):

 

The Father, rashly slaughtered his owne Sonne;

The Sonne compell’d, beene Butcher to the Sire;

                                                                      

     Horizontal plaintext is frequently used, not only as cluster support for a letter-string, but also be as a deliberate internal letter-string, either within one word or by fusing one or more words together to form another entirely new word.  The word product (s) can be difficult to see.  For instance, in the two lines above, I was only interested in how these letters fit into an array, not whether they had internal word code possibility.  My eye did see that some of the words were capitalized, and that four of them suggested one of the motifs in the play, i.e., of father-son relationships:  “Father … Sonne” in the first line, and “Sonne … Sire” in the second.  “Sire” has a definite procreative connotation which I immediately recognized.  However, putting the two sentences side by side, and removing (as is done in a skip-of-one ELS) any punctuation as well as the spaces between letters, it yields:

THEFATHERRASHLYSLAUGHTEREDHISOWNESONNETHESONNECOMPELLDBEENEBUTCHERTOTHESIRE

As can be seen, highlighting the internal letter-string to form another word produces :  “SONNET”, a word very difficult to see when both the meaning of the sentences and the isolation of the “T” making the word “SONNET” by placing it in the next sentence, and locating it at the far left.  However, in an array, a word formed in this manner is easier to recognize.  And, in this case, represents (to me) a clue.  Furthermore, playing with the six words:  “his owne sonne, the sonnE.C.O.mpell’d” can be seen as:  “his (Vere’s) owne sonne (Henry Wriothesley), the sonne (of) E.C.O.”

     “HENRIE”, and the issue of being the “HEIR” is a prominent feature of Array 40.  If “SONNET” is meaningful in that it points to a sonnet (or sonnets) that can be seen as related, it would go far in supporting the deliberate placement of a key word (s) within plaintexts in order to convey a message; something strongly suggesting intelligent design is at work.

     Is there any additional satellite support in (1623 First Folio) Act Five, Scene Five, lines 3861 – 3887 for the hinted at or implied interpretation suggesting  father and son (Vere and Henry) are working together as writers in Richard III ?  Is there a ‘key’ sonnet involved?  And, of course, does “his owne sonne (t)he sonne) point to Henry Wriothesley as being the poet of at least one particular sonnet attributed to William Shakespeare?

   But before I address the latter questions, it is important to keep in mind that Array 40 (for me) lays the basis for Henry Wriothesley as being, not only the heir to the throne of England as the son of Edward de Vere and Elizabeth I, but that he is a poet and writer in his own right.

   Array 42 in lines 3861 – 3887  appears to point in this direction:

                                                                         Fig. 13

   Queen Elizabeth I was born in 1533.  Henry Wriothesley was born in 1573.  Assuming Elizabeth is the biological mother of Henry, then she was forty years old when she gave birth to him.  Array 40, as we have seen, is strongly suggestive that Elizabeth and Edward de Vere were his parents.  The math here may simply be a stunning coincidence, or deliberate number play on the part of those who were responsible for the sequence numbering of the sonnets published in 1609.  One or the other observation is true; true, that is, assuming the premise that we are dealing with actual encryptions, and that a person or persons manipulated multiple plaintexts to produce what skips-of-one ELS are revealing.

   We now turn to Sonnet 40, attributed, at this point in time, to Shakespeare.

                                                                                               Sonnet 40

                                                                           Fig. 14

“Facsimile Viewer: The Sonnets, Quarto 1 (Chalmers-Bridgewater (Aspley Imprint)).” Internet Shakespeare Editions, University of Victoria: Victoria, BC, 03 Feb. 2011. Accessed 16 Oct. 2012. <http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/facsimile/book/UC_Q1_Son/21/?work=Son&ln=40>.

   Changing each “∫ ” to “s” (as they are intended to be), and all “u”s intended to be “v”s to “v”s, and all “v”s intended to be “u”s to “u”s, the sonnet becomes more readable to a modern audience, and does not affect any letter-string, Sonnet 40 looks like this:

                                                                         Fig. 15 An ELS of six provides:

                                                                Fig. 16

And how is Fig. 16 related to any plaintext in Richard III thus far discussed?  Note that the letter just above the “H” in “Henri” is a “W”, and below the “I” in “Henri” is a “G”:

                                                                             Fig. 17

The “W” represents “Wriothesley (for our purposes, at least).  Returning to the opening lines of Richard III , beginning in line 40, Richard says:

                                                         This day should Clarence closely be mew’d vp:

                                                         About a Prophesie, which sayes that G,

                                                         Of Edwards heyres . . .

17

   For years I have wondered about the letter “G” in this lengthy speech.  It is an unusual reference in the play, and leaves one guessing who the “G” is in the prophesie:  “George” (Clarence) or “Gloucester” (Richard).  It’s never directly spelled out.    However, the letter-string in Sonnet 40 is an encryption; thus, we are free to interpret, especially in light of the phrase, “Edward’s heirs”, that the “G” in Array 6 of Sonnet 40 merely (but significantly) aligns Sonnet 40 with (as we have already discussed) the author of the sonnet attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon:  Henry Wriothesley.

   What I especially appreciate is that, beginning in line, 40, in both the 1623 First Folio version as well as in the 1597 Quarto 1 version, the 17th word is “Edward (s)” (Edward de Vere was the 17th Earl of Oxford), and the 18th word is “heyre (s)” (Henry Wriothesley, if legitimized, would have been the 18th Earl of Oxford).  Possibly pure coincidence.  However, in the context of searching for evidence of intelligent design in ciphertexts, this kind of verbal-number word play, to me, has the hallmark of being valid.

   Furthermore, in both versions of Richard III (1623, First Folio, 1597 Quarto 1), the final lines of Richmond at the end of the play have the same line count of 27.  Now, I realize this may be what for me is a happy coincidence, but had Henry Wriothesley (if indeed he was the son of Elizabeth and Edward de Vere), had become the legitimate heir, he would have been called Henry 9th.  The play ends with the resolution of the thematic issue of who will be the heir to the throne of England.  This is summed up by Richmond in a passage of 27 lines:  and 2 + 7 = 9.  I have come across far too many number plays in the canon plaintexts to summarily dismiss number puns involving 7s (de Vere would have become Edward 7th had William Cecil not thwarted his succession to the throne upon the death of Elizabeth), 9s, and, for obvious reasons, the number 17.  Again, Edward de Vere’s ‘signature’ is omnipresent, even in  number play:  for he  was the 17th Earl of Oxford.  Although the earliest date of performance  has not been decided as of yet, the year 1592 is often assigned to it.  ∑  1592 = 17  (1+5+9+2).  It is worth considering that the frontispiece for the 1597 Quarto 1 has no attribution (see Fig. 18 below) as to author.  William Shakespeare’s by-line is nowhere to be found.  Therefore, is it reasonable to entertain the possibility that the missing author attribution was deliberate, and a suggested and/or implied attribution on the basis of 17– number-play was intended for ‘those in the know”, if you will?

    Coincidence, or deliberate?  Random occurrence, or intelligent design?

“That Ever I was borne”

[Hamlet:  1623 (First Folio), 1603 )Quarto 1), 1604 (Quarto 2)  —  Identical sentence, identical spelling  — ∑ = 17 ] The 1597 Quarto 1 version of Richard III doubtless had multiple printed copies of the frontispiece you see in Fig. 18  below.  It’s a relatively short plaintext, easy to array by hand if an intended person knew the keyword (s) to use in locating a message, or, if using a classic Cardano grille, the template to overlay over a copied-out plaintext on parchment made especially for such a purpose.   I often begin with an available frontispiece to see if there are any clues or keywords I think might be useful.  In fact, this is how I began my work with Richard III:

                                                                               Fig. 18

http://www.folger.edu/imgdtl.cfm?imageid=717&cid=914

Making my usual alterations (again, not affecting the plaintext except for presenting letters as intended to be read and pronounced at the time of their writing and publication in the 16th and 17 centuries), it looks like this:

                                                                           Fig. 19

The array search paid off in spades:

                                                                            Fig. 20

The plaintext of the frontispiece rightly says the play [with no attribution given to any author (s) ] is about the tragedy of the historical King Richard III.  However, as seen from the previous discussion, and witnessed by the above letter-string, the strong suggestion is that the play in reality concerns the true heir to the Crown (‘true’ from the view of the writer of Richard III), Henry Wriothesley, the child of Elizabeth I and Edward de Vere, the unrecognized-by-history successor to the Crown of England.  When I initially found this, I knew that to give credibility to the encryption there would have to be more encrypted support within the play itself.  Furthermore, the “I” preceeding the “H” in “Henry” also strongly suggests that “Henry”/”Henrie”/”Henri” (the varied name spellings of which has been shown above) was one of the contributors to the writing of the plaintext of Richard III, as the presence of “I” lends a sense of ‘present tense’.

                                                                          Fig. 21

Array 61 shifts the letter-string, “IHENRY” into a left-reading bottom-to-top diagonal, revealing what in my point of view is the consistent pairing of Edward de Vere with Henry:

                                                                          Fig. 22

“MDL” is the Roman numeral for “1550”, the date assigned to the birth of Edward de Vere as suggested by his birth announcement.  The ciphertext placement of the numerals, syntactically, reads:  “I’m the Lord Chamberlaine.”  The 1550 reference is encrypted in letters for the obvious reason that the plaintext does not contain the numbers, hence “MDL” is the necessary substitution for it.  This encryption further identifies just which Lord Chamberlaine is being talked about.  This placement is critical as it directly refers to the birthdate of Edward de Vere (who became the Lord Great Chamberlaine upon the death of his father, John, the 16th Earl of Oxford, in 1562, when Edward was twelve years old).  The “I” lends a present tense feel to the letter-string, and, as such, points to Edward de Vere as “a” writer (perhaps with Henry Wriothesley) of the frontispiece, as well as Richard III itself.  Though the letter-string of “MDL” is only three letters in length, it hammers home (to me) the realness of intelligent design behind the ciphertext cluster.  This, and the connection of “The Tragedy of” with “The Lord Chamberlaine” by the diagonal “I, Henry” represents  a “connection to”, or “an arrow pointing in the direction of” the pairing of Henry and de Vere.  A connection suggesting other hidden messages are to be found in the play itself.

   Returning to the frontispiece arrays 62 and 61, if the theory that a particular array number can point to content-support elsewhere, then my hunch is that Sonnets 62 and 61 will bear this out (as we’ve seen in the case of Sonnet 40 above.

   Let us begin with Sonnet 62:

                                                                    Fig. 23

Scholars have estimated the time of the writing of both the Sonnets and of Richard III was somewhere within the dates of 1592 – 1593.  Since our focus at this time is on an array number pointing to content-support, and the focus of our present ELS search is on Henry and Edward de Vere, it makes sense to reason that:  since the Henry Wriothesley was born in 1573, that would make him approximately 20 years old at the time of the composition of the Sonnets and the play under consideration. If this a reasonable assumption, then we should find support in array 20 of Sonnet 62:

                                                                          Fig. 24

   One way of looking, or interpreting, the cluster is:  “The account of Henry, my glasse (shewes me).”  “Glass” in French is “VERRE”.  The metaphor is clear:  the cluster is saying that if you look at me (Vere) what is reflected back is a copy of myself; i.e., my son Henrie.  I mentioned earlier that the hypothesized “account” of (Henry, in this case) points to the Sonnets.  I likened this possible process to a modern flow-chart, a sort of “map”, if you will.

   One connotation of a “map” is a metaphorical one, suggesting representation of the relationship (s) of two or more things.  Shakespeare only uses the word “map” 13 times in the canon, with 2 of them occurring in Sonnet 68.  Put another way, “map” occurs only these two times in the entire sonnet set.  The rest of Shakespeare’s work (plays, other poems, and so on), “map” is used a mere 11 more times.  I emphasize this because the scarcity of the word in Shakespeare is not remarkable in itself.  However, in a letter-string relevant to the ‘map’ of  relationships under present scrutiny, it appears significant.  It’s appearance may be coincidental, but perhaps not in this case.

                                                                             Fig. 25

Notice the “P” directly above and connected to the “H” in “HENRY”.  Reading diagonally 2 letters and upward to the right, then down to the “H”, is the word “MAP”.  My interpretation of this cluster reads:  “The map and account of my relationship  to my son Henry.”  One might even say the sonnets (or a large number of them) are about “Henry”.

   We have seen earlier that the redundancy of content and motifs (at least in the present case) appears to persist when a word or words make veiled references to another location one may look to find this content reflected back, albeit in a different context (although certainly not in every case), we see it reflected back to us again in Sonnet 20 as possibly referred to in Sonnet 62, Array 20.  Before getting to this, however, the letter-string you see in Fig. 26 below is noteworthy as another example within a ‘referred to’ plaintext that supports the existence of deliberate design within the works of Shakespeare:

                                                                             Fig. 26

“Good Queen Bess” was how Elizabeth I was often referred to.  The word “mine” has a ‘present tense’ feel to it.  That is to say, it suggests to me, at least, the actual presence of the writer of the embedded message within the plaintext.  I believe the sonnets (or least a group of them) were a correspondence between Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth, either to or amongst each other.  We have seen how Sonnet 76 (as well as Sonnet 30, to be discussed at a later date) strongly suggests Edward de Vere is the author of the  Sonnets,  how Sonnet 40 may be at least one sonnet written by Henry Wriothesley [if letter-string theory (skip-of-one ELSs) bear this out], and how Elizabeth I (who is on record as being a poet in her own right) may have had a part in the actual writing of one or more of the sonnets.

                                                                    Fig. 27

   Again we have the word “mine” suggesting the presence of the writer and/or encrypter of a similar yet nearly identical message:  “Henry Wriothesley is mine.  (signed) Beth.”

   And, who is willing to swear to this, to vow that was is being encrypted is so?”

                                                                       Fig. 28

However, a closer look reveals this:

                                                                        Fig. 29

Array 21 is a difficult array to ‘sculpt’ so that, if not presented in at least two layers, the congested appearance makes it hard to understand, unless one is used to seeing an embellished cluster.  In fact, there is more to include; but can be explained without doing so.

   The “D” in “DIH” (hid) is the beginning of “disclose” in the plaintext.  Initially, the dominant letter-strings are (being flexible with the syntax):  “Lord Veer, hidden/concealed.”  Adding the “disclose” as well as the “OE” below the “V” in “Veer”, the “OE” below the “V” in “Veer”, the diagonal “VOW”, and the word “TEST” crossing “HEIR” with the perhaps too redundant  horizontal “test” can yield something like this:

“Earl Oxenforde, Lord Veer, vows W.H. (Henry Wriothesley) is the heir.  Test it!“

[ “TEST“:  Sense of “trial or examination to determine the correctness of something” is recorded from 1590s. ]

   Returning to the frontispiece (1597, Quarto 1) for Richard III (Fig. 18), we are once again challenged to check out what is being shown in the arrays (coincidentally in Array 18):

                                                                            Fig. 30

   In other words, the encrypter is saying:  if you doubt what you are seeing, check out Edward de Vere, the content of his public and private life, his earlier poetry, the encryptions found in all the works attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, see for yourself, and decide whether you still believe  all this is the result of coincidence or by deliberate design.

   At this point in time, we have only dealt with the opening and closing lines of Richard III, as well as five lines from Act 4.  Many of the larger themes and issues in the public and private life of Edward de Vere are visually brought forth in skillfully crafted encryptions (rightful heirs to the Crown of England; the nature of Edward de Vere’s relationship to Queen Elizabeth, as well as the identity of Henry Wriothesley and his probable parentage, to name but a few we shall see in the body of the play itself.  I believe the true “vow”, and perhaps true signature of the entire Shakespeare canon are the Sonnets.  For they are a kind of preamble to what is to come.  That Edward de Vere is saying to us in straightforward language: “I have decided to use a pen name from here on out.  And, if you want to know who I really am, know henceforth that:  “My name be buried where my body is.”    

                                                                          Fig. 31

                                                                          Fig. 32

   The encryptions are confessions, signatures, and compositely represent a written monument designed to ensure as yet an unacknowledged truth constructed of pen and ink that plainly states that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon is not the true author of “my” works, for “my name’s DEVERE.”

                                                       Richard III (Quarto 1, 1597)

                                                        Act One, Scene One, 5 – 46

                                                                          Array 39

                                                                          Fig. 33

 

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