CHAPTER 4.
Perhaps in view of Oxford’s reputation as a spoiled aristocrat addicted to lavish expense, who
improvidently squandered his family fortune in Timon-like feasting and patronage, and frittered
away his talents in practical joking and comic diversions beneath the dignity appropriate to his
station, an excerpt from a little-noticed¹ 1587 letter written to Lord Burghley by Andrew Trollop
will serve as a useful point of entry to the intrinsically complicated subject of identifying the
“real” Edward de Vere. The letter is significant not just because it voices what might be
considered a minority opinion – that is, a positive one -- regarding Oxford’s character, but also
because it so clearly acknowledges, as the very context of its production, the pre-existence of the
controversy which still today swirls about the man. Unlike published book dedications,
furthermore, the testimony is beyond criticism as mere flattery -- it is written privately to a third
party, apparently in response to some request for testimony regarding Oxford’s character. It points
unmistakably to a legacy of controversy which did not end with Oxford’s 1572 abortive attempts
to rescue the imprisoned Thomas Howard by force, his 1576 marriage crisis, his September 1579
“falling out” at tennis with Phillip Sidney, his 1581 informing on Charles Arundel and Henry
Howard for plotting against the Queen, his fathering of a bastard child – which Gloucester-like he
“blushed to acknowledge” --
on Anne Vavasour in 1581, or even his protracted feuding with
Anne’s uncle Thomas Knyvet or any of the other myriad incidents which are conventionally cited
by orthodox literary historians as evidence of his disgraceful conduct and un-Christian character.
The letter possesses an air of disclaimer, as if the writer has volunteered to serve as a character
witness in response to accusations lodged against Oxford by powerful and implacable enemies:
From the 10th to the 21st year of Her Majesty (1568-1579), I was deputy to Thomas Gent,
esquire, then steward of the manors of the Right Honourable the earl of Oxford, and during all
1
The document, dated October 6 1587, is not cited by Looney (1920), Ward (1928), Ogburn (1984), Hope and Holston (1993) or
Sobran (1996). Only Ogburn and Ogburn (1952 770) and Slater (199), in his survey of anti-Stratfordian theories, seem to have
noticed its potentially very great relevance in establishing the case for de Vere's authorship of "Shakespeare."
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