It wasn’t until the late 19th century when prestigious members of the English law community pitched in that the Authorship fight got really nasty and the Stratford defenders began circling the wagons. It was no big deal when lady authors and American poets questioned Shakespeare’s identity, but a Dean of the Arches (the judge who … Continue reading Smith, Oxford, and the Law
Apart from the biographies that launched this long research project, among the hundreds, perhaps thousands of books and articles I’ve read, three stand out as watersheds. These were, in order of discovery: Mary Dewar’s biography: Sir Thomas Smith: A Tudor Intellectual in Office (1964); K.B. McFarlane’s The Nobility of Later Medieval England (1950s), and Ellen … Continue reading Evidence for Oxford’s years with Smith
Here are the Greek titles on Smith’s library list of 1566, plus some information about them. Those published before 1540 were undoubtedly purchased while he was in Europe, as he would have wanted them to help with teaching Greek to the students at Cambridge. According to the sources I’ve read on the publishing of humanist works … Continue reading Smith’s Greek titles
Sir Thomas Smith was born during a transition time in English history. In England, the upsurge of enthusiasm over Art and the Beautiful that characterized the Renaissance in the southern European nations was largely stifled by the Protestant Reformation, already well in operation by the time the Renaissance reached English shores. Luckily the early English … Continue reading Smith and the Wisdom Tradition
Sometimes a single fact can become the key to an entire period in history. Oxford’s childhood with Sir Thomas Smith is that sort of key, not just to complete our picture of Oxford’s life, but to complete the picture of Oxford as Shakespeare, and beyond that, of Shakespeare as central to the history of England during what may … Continue reading Evidence for Oxford’s childhood with Smith
Merkel: “Thanks for your fascinating exploration of Edward’s early years. Just curious: In the Birth and Infancy section, you write: “It was at this time, December of 1554, [snip]… that, according to Smith’s biographer, the four-year-old Edward de Vere was brought to live and be tutored by Smith.” What’s the evidence Smith’s biographer offers for Edward … Continue reading What’s the evidence for Edward arriving on Smith’s doorstep at age four? – Marie Merkel
Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun That will not be deep-search’d with saucy looks; Small have continual plodders ever won, Save base authority from others’ books, These earthly godfathers of heaven’s light, That give a name to every fixéd star, Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot … Continue reading Shakespeare, Smith and Cecil
During the period of most intense education of the nobility, possibly since Alexander was tutored by Aristotle, the first gush of the burst of energy in fields of scholarship, education, and scientific questioning brought by the English Reformation, a great university scholar and teacher spent eight years tutoring a single student, the overly sheltered little … Continue reading Shakespeare and Sir Thomas Smith
That few today recognize Smith by name is one of those sad cruelties of Fate, for Sir Thomas was as famous in his time, and for a century or so after, as any of the friends and colleagues whose names continue to ring loud today in histories of the period. In his own time he … Continue reading He comes to Sir Thomas Smith
That someone with Smith’s reputation was available just at the time that it was necessary to find a safe place and a good tutor for the Oxford heir must have seemed most fortunate to all concerned (except perhaps the four-year-old himself). Smith’s teaching credentials from Cambridge and Eton, his mastery of Latin, of Protestant theology … Continue reading Eight years with Sir Thomas Smith
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