Synopsis *
PLOT SYNOPSIS
~Elizabeth I meets Shakespeare in Love meets The da Vinci Code~
Video et taceo ("I see and keep silent")~Elizabeth
Queen Elizabeth, Robert Dudley
BLOOD ROYAL: Bacon was a love child -- the natural son of Queen Elizabeth, and was in truth "William Tudor," who was secretely writing as Shakespeare and under other pen names. The Queen's wedding (1561) and offspring (1561, Essex 1566) were State Secrets, hinting at foul play in the removal of Dudley's wife. These children, politically inconvenient truths, were often not in her Virgin Queen favor.
Essex, Elizabeth, Dudley
Though adopted by Nicholas Bacon, Francis knew himself to be royal soon enough, and never missed an opportunity to wear the royal purple, appropriate or not. There was an extraordinary likeness between Francis Bacon and the Queen. Both had commanding intellects. He realized knowledge is power and used his intelligence for gathering Intelligence, also. Denied his worldly kingdom, Francis became King of the "World of the Mind," emphasizing empiricism and induction, while his philosophy was infused with magic and the occult. Both art and literature were used to convey covert meanings. Bacon was the Master Mason, firmly seated between the Pillars of Solomon as his throne, theoretically commanding both nature and mankind, through Wisdom, Strength and Beauty.
OBFUSCATION: Historical controversy is often supported on one side by the party line: a lie becomes the official truth and is difficult to refute, since obfuscation simply tires most intellects. Realizing his double-bind, Francis was likewise ambivalent about his fate in his writings, both concealing and revealing a deeper reality to the discerning or initiated. Bacon had many secrets to conceal, including his penchant for his own sex, despite the fact he had fallen head over heels at 16 for the daughter of Catherine de Medici -- Marguerite de Valois at the French Court (1576-1579). "Shakespeare" was in love and may have remained tragically so his whole life when his mother refused to let him marry a divorced Catholic. Foster brother Anthony was charged with sodomy in the summer of 1586, though the charges were suppressed.
In 1593, while attending Gray's Inn Law School and suffering from economic difficulties, Bacon was granted Twickenham Park, by the Queen, a villa on 87 acres, opposite the Queen's Tudor Palace at Richmond. From her window the Queen was able to watch any improvements Bacon made upon the property and at the same time be in close proximity to Francis so she could keep her eye on her son and his activities. He formed an intentional writers community, perhaps the greatest literary achievement the world has ever seen! He was the spearhead of his Lodge of "good pens" and Masons. They wrote and practiced dramatic rituals of initiation. He used his circle of writers to create public opinion, initiating a legacy of psychological warfare and public psychodrama by secret secret societies that is embodied in the mind controlling and cultural effects of media today.
Shakespeare, Bacon, Dee
LOVE'S LABOR LOST: Denied both his kingdom and the love of his life, Bacon was driven to commit his story to drama. The story of Love's Labor's Lost concerns a youthful King of Navarre and four of his courtiers, the Lords Dumaine, Longaville, Berowne and Boyesse and four ladies of the court. The drama contains a real life love affair that existed between Francis Bacon and Marguerite de Valois (the daughter of Catherine de Medici and King Henry of Navarre) when he was visiting France in 1576-8. The names of the four Lords are taken directly from the passport of Anthony Bacon when he was living in the Navarre territory (1583-92). In "Of Love," Francis Bacon writes, "The stage is more beholding to love, than the life of man. For as to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief; sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury."
SHAKESPEAREAN MASK:
DEEP COVER: Sir Francis Walsingham organised a secret service, which at one time employed 53 agents on the Continent. One of his most accomplished assistants was Anthony Bacon--the brother of Francis--but the best of his cryptanalysts was Thomas Phelippes, a widely-travelled educated man, who was capable of solving ciphers in five languages. Walsingham opened a secret cipher school in London and all of his agents (including Francis) had to take a course in cryptography before they were entrusted with service abroad. Of course, Walsingham's Secret Service was not solely concerned with foreign affairs, but was designed to protect the Queen from treasonable activities on her own doorstep as well. History shows that cryptography was one of Elizabeth's most valuable political assets, intercepting Mary, Queen of Scots's secret messages, with the result that all of the conspirators to depose Elizabeth, including Mary herself, were finally arrested. Walsingham later claimed that his agents had found the keys to about 50 different ciphers in Mary's apartments.
ELIZABETHAN ESPIONAGE
Bacon & Dee
DECODING SHAKESPEARE: The Rosicrucians claim Francis was a reincarnation of brilliant alchemist, Franciscan monk Roger Bacon (1214-1294). Many magic spells and alchemical formulae were simply a scholar’s code, meant to protect scientific secrets. Both championed the experimental method. Dee was a noted astrologer and mathematician. He, like Pythagoras and Bacon, believed, that everything in heaven and earth had a number assigned to it. He thought that if you could determine the number, mathematically or cabalistically, you could control events. He also believed that the position of the stars affected life on earth. John Dee’s library spurred a revival of Greek ideas and his books were accessible to all the great thinkers of England at the time. This was to be the embryo of the Royal Society, a collection of great philosophers and scientific thinkers who credited Francis Bacon for its’ ideals that emulated his work called, The New Atlantis. Francis Bacon succeeded in achieving what Roger Bacon tried so desperately, but failed to attain. He became the spirit of the new scientific revolution – Bacon’s methodology towards science, to challenge any piece of evidence deemed spurious or obtained by incorrect method.
According to the Story of Philosophy, by Will Durant, philosophy, rather than science was in the long run Bacon’s love. The Baconian Spirit rang out in his words in “The Interpretation of Nature’: I believe myself born for the service of mankind….to shed some light on the present limits and borders so human discoveries would reveal and bring into clear view every nook and cranny of darkness….that discovery would be the true Extender of the Kingdom of Man over the universe, the Champion of human liberty, and the exterminator of the necessities that now keep man in bondage. He felt that he had a ‘kinship and connection with truth.’ He was truly a Philosopher King, who’s kingdom lay beyond mere sight.
CIPHERS: Francis Bacon adopted all of Roger Bacon’s, Dante's and Dee’s methods of secret writing: ciphers, numbers, anagrams, printing errors, special type setting, gematria, hieroglyphics, allegorical pictures, emblematic head and tailpieces, watermarks, etc. Bacon was recognized as a poet. Some contend he wrote The Sonnets for his first love, Marguerite of the French Court. His frustration was vent in the Shakespearean plays according to Gallup who says: “That the cipher message is enclosed in the works I have deciphered I know, from years of hard and exhaustive study. There is no more doubt of the existence of the cipher and its message than there is of the Morse alphabet and its use at the present day. The study has been of thousands of pages, comparison and classification of hundreds of thousands of the italic letters, and I have the right to claim, and insist, that I know.” --Elizabeth Wells Gallup, The Biliteral Cypher of Sir Francis Bacon 1899-1990. Roger Bacon [no relation], visonary John Dee and the gnostic Cathars are connected through the still-undeciphered Voynich Manuscript, an enigmatic esoteric cipher. But Bacon conceals yet reveals his identity and political status along with spiritual truths and heresies in his works. The rustic Shakespeare still gets credit for the concealed works of the polymath Bacon.
SUB ROSA: All means of clandestine activities took place under the Tudor Rose, stemming from the War of the Roses. To this day meetings pledged to secrecy are termed, 'sub rosa.' Synonymous with secrecy, it means strict confidentiality and a security classification equivalent to Top Secret. To the Rosicrucians of the age of Elizabeth, it hardly seems questionable that the rose was the symbol of silence, as among the ancients it was originally derived from the pagan tradition that the God of Love made the first rose, which he presented to the God of Silence. From this tradition originated the custom of carving a rose on the ceilings of banquet halls, or rooms where people met for gayety and diversion, to intimate that under it, whatever was spoken or done was not to be divulged; hence our term sub rosa used to indicate secrecy. The Cross,of course, signified salvation, to which the Society of the Rose-Cross devoted itself by teaching mankind the love of God and the beauty of brotherhood, with all that they implied.
There is also a connection between Bacon and the Rose-Cross of the Rosicrucians. Among the members of the ancient Society appear these initials, " Fra. F.B.; M.P.A.; " which, plainly stated, stand for Francis Bacon, Magister, Pictor, Architectus. A friend of Robert Fludd, only he could write,
"I writ the Rosicrucian Infallible Axiomata in four books, and study, not for my own sake only, but for them that study not for themselves. In the law I began to be a perfect clerk; I writ the idea of the Law, et., for the benefit of my friends, and practice in King's Bench.(the reader is referred to Bacon's Historia Vitae et Mortis, and legal writings including the Attorney's Academy.) I envy no man that knows more than myself, but pity them that knows less..... Now, intake midst of all my endeavours there is but one thought that dejects me, that my acquired parts must perish with myself, nor can be legacied amongst my dearly beloved and honoured friends."
Dr. John Dee & Elizabeth
ELIZABETHAN ESPIONAGE: John Dee, the model for Faust and Prospero, was the most accomplished astrologer in Europe and confidante of Queen Elizabeth I. He used his ability to cast holoscopes as entre to all the great houses, kings and nobles of Europe. He was functioning as an intelligence agent. He was a spy for the British crown, insinuating himself into these various courtly scenes and then writing back to Elizabeth in cyphers that had previously only been used for magical purposes. In the 1580s, he was sending back data on the strengths of military garrisions and the placement of fortifications -- strategic details..
Meanwhile, Francis Bacon's foster brother, Anthony Bacon also travelled on the continent as an intelligencer for Walsingham, Burghley and the Queen. Anthony left England in September 1579 for a ‘tour’ of the continent. He sent back to his brother a constant stream of intelligence as well as a supply of books and manuscripts to support their literary work. He also helped to set up a special twelve-month journey (1581-2) for Francis to France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Denmark where he observed people, places, culture and religion and acted as a spy himself. Anthony returned in 1592 from twelve years abroad as an intelligencer to aid Francis. Anthony’s extensive correspondence with princes, statesmen, ambassadors, poets and writers across Europe fits remarkably well as a resource for the plays and Bacon’s source notebook, Promus of Formularies.
Francis learned people reading at an early age and to not let his face betray his words:
In few words, mysteries are due to secrecy… As for talkers and futile persons, they are commonly vain and credulous withal. For he that talketh what he knoweth, will also talk what he knoweth not. Therefore set it down, that an habit of secrecy, is both politic and moral. And in this part, it is good that a man’s face give his tongue leave to speak. For the discovery of a man’s self, by the tracts of his countenance, is a great weakness and betraying; by how much it is many times more marked, and believed, than a man’s words.~Essay on Simulation and Dissimulation, 1601
