Archive for category: Musings

William Shakespeare: The Lost Years Explained

Walter Witherword, PhD
Stratfordian Historical Apologist Trust
Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwickshire,
B0L L0X, United Kingdom
March 7, 2021

A Search for Deuocion

One would think it rather unlikely in this day and age to discover a completely new lead for the lost years (1585 to 1592) of William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon.  Yet whilst perusing a trove of 17^th century tomes, I came across the following phrase: “have presently condemned me to everlasting shatner, there to bee kept unto the laff day.”[1]

Figure 1:Samuel Heron’s fate

This curious word “shatner” drew my attention, particularly when preceded by “everlasting” (See Figure 1). “Everlasting” is a word, like “Everliving”, which was used, in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, solely in two situations:

• In reference to things spiritual
• When referring to William Shakespeare[2] – See Figure 4.

The title of this odd volume was A Help unto Deuocion, by a certain Samuel Heron.  My first impulse was to look up the name “Deuocion”.  Imagine my surprise when I found it in Romeo and Juliet! (see Figure 2: The deucion discovered!)

Figure 2: The deucion discovered (RJ, Act I: Scene 5)!

Note that the word preceding “deuocion” is “mannerly.”  Now, though I shudder to mention the name, for fear of being labelled an authorship doubter, it is mere child’s play to go from “mannerly” to “manners“, as in Roger Manners, 5^th Earl of Rutland[3], who has been proposed by some unstable amateur academics as the “true” author of the bard’s works.  But there is a connection between Rutland and Shakespeare, namely that Rutland was a close associate of the Earl of Essex, whose cabal personally strong-armed William Shakespeare into summoning his troupe to perform Richard II as an incitement to rebellion.[4]  Although the history books neglectfully fail to mention any official questioning of Shakespeare about this incident, it undoubtedly did happen. Furthermore, it is highly probable that thugs physically threatened the Great Bard.  Indeed, it is within the realm of possibility that he was beaten within an inch of his life, likely causing him the injury that led to the horrid penmanship of his later years.[5]

Notwithstanding the unerringly plausible intimacy between Shakespeare and the Earl of Rutland and the concomitant questioning which might have been put to Shakespeare by the queen herself in a private audience with her favorite playwright, let us shift our focus to the Earl’s provenance itself. Now the domain of the Manners family, Rutland, in the English Midlands, includes a small village called Lyndon (see Figure 3).  As aficionados of American history all know, this is also the first name of the president of the United States from 1963 to 1969.

Figure 3: Lyndon, Rutland, and surroundings (map from 1646)

Figure 4: Our Everliving Poet.

The Johnson Administration

One of the little-known aspects of the Johnson Administration was a secret project called REDACTED.  Simultaneously with its deployment, a “studio” calling itself “Paramount” in Los Angeles, California, “produced” a tele-vision show called “Star-Trek” between 1966 and 1969, i.e. the last few years of the Johnson administration.[6]

But it was all a lie. “Star-Trek” was really the cover story for REDACTED. Its “scientific fictional” format was ideal for concealing a functional time-travelling spacecraft piloted by a Major Shatner. An exhaustive search of the public NASA records produced no mention of a Shatner of any rank during this period.[7] It turns, out, however, that he was an officer on loan from the Royal Canadian Air Force.[8] Why? Likely in order to bypass congressional restrictions[9] preventing U.S. citizens from coming in contact with the highly toxic radioactive elements used in powering REDACTED. 

Figure 5:An RCAF CC-150 sporting Commemorative Tail lauding Maj. Shatner

Major Shatner also experienced several lost years wherein he unexplainedly went from being a stage actor to being a time-travelling astronaut. And what sort of stage actor was he?  A Shakespearean actor (see Figure 6)!  Then, mysteriously, he returned to “acting”, if it can be called that, in a tele-vision “series” that was obviously a completely fabricated obfuscation called “Barbary Coast.”[10]  I personally recall seeing “advertising” for this show, but I have never met anyone who actually saw it. Did it ever actually exist?

Figure 6: Major Shatner, the Early Years

What, you may ask, was Shatner’s first name?  William.  Yes! Extraordinary! The same as the Bard. Also the same initials as the Bard, i.e., W.S., which is a tantalizing segue to…

A Funeral Elegy: More Lost Years and a Connection

Of course, erudites of Elizabethan ephemera will be familiar with “A Funeral Elegy”, the heretofore presumed “anonymous” poem associated with the letters W.S., tantalizingly close to justifying an attribution to William Shakespeare. In 2002, it was proposed that W.S. may have been the name of the person[11] who had paid for the composition of the elegiac verse destined to celebrate the life of a certain William[12] Peter.

Now this supposed “actor”, i.e., Major Shatner, apparently had a “rough patch” from 1969 to 1977 in which he effectively disappeared from “Holly-wood.”[13]  It is obvious, however, that all references to him being present during that time were subsequently falsified. Where was he, truly?

In 1969, an astounding observation in a little-known paper was overshadowed by the celebrated moon landing. Professor Kafka of the Max Planck Institute noted a “neutron-star-quake” emitted on February 24^th of that year.[14] Remember that date.

It is universally accepted that William Shakespeare’s lost years ran from 1585, when he left his family in Stratford, to 1592, when he arrived in London and instantly became the toast of society.  The Earl of Southampton, after reading his epic poem Venus and Adonis, gave him his own wing in his London residence;[15] Queen Elizabeth met with him for tea every week until her death.[16] But how did this humble Warwickshire boy, though valedictorian[17] of the Stratford Grammar School, rise to the highest echelons of English society while effectively vanishing for seven years?

What happened on February 24^th, 1585? A celestial alignment, a “great conjunction” of all the planets.[18] A gravitational magnification of, literally, astronomical consequence.  Enough, perhaps to create a “neutron-star-quake”?

The pieces all fall into place when one posits that a temporal tunnel was formed between these two events, 384[19] years apart. Two Williams. Two “W.S.”s. Each missing for seven years.  Only a loony conspiracy theorist could think this a mere coincidence. Is not the simplest possible explanation that the two are indeed one and the same person? When one was missing in the 16^th/17^th century, the other one was present in the 20^th century, and vice versa. William Shakespeare “died” in 1616, but in fact, ground-penetrating radar has shown that there is no coffin under the flagstone in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford – only a bag of “bones”, which doesn’t even include a skull![20]  This is obviously yet another obfuscatory obstruction – likely planted by authorship deniers.

Conclusion

William Shakespeare is undoubtedly the author of the plays ascribed to William Shakespeare.  The so-called “lost years” (or more accurately, perhaps, misplaced years) have been found.  They all took place in the 20^th century when William Shakespeare made use of his thinly-disguised pseudonym William Shatner, an admitted Shakespearean scholar and time-traveler. His supposed “death” in Stratford in 1616 actually consisted of a return to the present, where he still resides.

For those skeptics who may still insist that this is highly implausible, I ask you: Why has William Shatner never denied any of this?

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[1] Heron, Samuel, A Help unto Deuocion, London: Macham, 1615

[2] See the introduction to Shake-speares Sonnets, London: Thomas Thorpe, 1609

[3] 1576-1612.

[4] See Cadwallader, L. H. The Career of the Earl of Essex. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1923.

[5] Lee, Sir Sidney. Shakespeare’s Handwriting. Smith, Elder, & Co., London, 1899.

[6] It also happened that during this time, Barbara Garson wrote a play, MacBird!, in which the characters of MacBeth and Lyndon Johnson are conflated. It is not implausible that this may not have been a coincidence. As we shall see, the 384 years which separate the two plays is not as unsurmountable an obstacle as one may presume to have expected!  SeeGarson, Barbara, MacBird! Grassy Knoll Press, 1966.

[7] Freedom of Information Act employee report, National Atmospheric and Space Administration,  https://www.nasa.gov/FOIA/index.html, retrieved 1/28/2021.

[8] As of the writing of this research paper, the Canadian Armed Forces denies ever having worked with Shatner, and vice versa. Is it not curious that these denials are so coordinated with each other?

[9] Elsea, Jennifer, et al. Congressional Research Service Report R41989: Congressional Authority to Limit Military

Operations. Library of Congress Publications, 2013.

[10] Tim Brooks; Earle Marsh (2003). “Barbary Coast, The (Western)”. The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946–Present (Eighth ed.). New York: Ballantine Books. p. 86. ISBN 978-0-345-45542-0.

[11] Niederkorn, William [sic!]. “Beyond the Briefly Inflated Canon: Legacy of the Mysterious ‘W. S.'”, The New York Times, June 26, 2002.

[12] There goes that name William, again!  Coincidence?  I think not!

[13] And yet (!) at the same time, he supposedly starred in “Barbary Coast” – see footnote 6.  Explain that!

[14] Kafka, P., http://adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1969MitAG..27..134K, Mitteilungen der Astronomischen Gesellschaft, 1969. Retrieved Feb 28, 2021.

[15] Alas, all documentation of this has been lost, but it obviously must have happened.

[16] Strangely, all the tea-time entries for Elizabeth’s reign have been lost or misplaced or perhaps stolen by authorship doubters; otherwise I am certain that Shakespeare’s name would head every guest-list.

[17] Although there are no records for the school during his youth, undoubtedly he was the smartest of the local lads.  I think we can bestow upon him this honor; did any of his schoolmates eventually write 37 plays?  I think not.

[18] Aston, Margaret. “The Fiery Trigon Conjunction”, Isis, Vol. 61, No.2. University of Chicago Press, 1970

[19] There’s that number again – 384. See Footnote 6.

[20] Geggel, Laura. “Shakespeare’s Skull May Have Been Stolen by Grave Robbers,” Scientific American, March 2016.