(dramatic music)
- [Robert] Imagine a
country where many people
have become convinced
that much of what we know
about William
Shakespeare is wrong.
(choir vocalizing)
Thanks to the efforts
of one dedicated man,
a chunk of the population
believes in some
hugely controversial
ideas about Shakespeare
and secret codes
appearing in his works.
Well, that country is Norway.
(speaking in foreign language)
Church organist Petter
Amundsen has persuaded
a best-selling author to
write the book of his theories
and his codes have
been reported on
the evening news in
his home country.
With thousands of followers
across social media,
who are determined to
prove Petter right.
(siren wailing)
(dramatic music)
But, I'm not one of them,
and I love Shakespeare
too much to keep quite.
(dramatic music)
My name is Robert Crumpton.
Not only do I write
about Shakespeare
in my PhD thesis, but
I've also performed
his plays on stage as an actor
and taught his works to
hundreds of students.
In all areas of my life,
Shakespeare is everywhere.
Petter Amundsen has no PhD,
no university professorship
and yet he's written a
book about Shakespeare.
He's supposed to have
an astonishing ability
to see codes and
messages which solve
every mystery about
Shakespeare in authorship.
Surely Shakespeare wrote
Shakespeare, no question.
- We know perfectly well that
Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare,
we have the unimpugnable
historical evidence.
- [Robert] There are books
with his name as author.
- We have all the porters
of Shakespeare's plays,
printed in his lifetime
and quite a lot of those
name him on the title
page William Shakespeare,
which have dedications
printed underneath them.
- [Robert] There are monuments
that hail his achievements
and we have comments from
people who knew him as a writer.
- Now if it wasn't
William Shakespeare,
who the hell was
it, one has to say.
- Shakespeare is the most
important figure in
world literature.
A glovers son from
Stratford-upon-Avon,
a grammar school boy
who came to London
and wrote the greatest plays
in history, the man who created
Hamlet, Othello, Lady Macbeth,
Prospero, the man who crafted
the most beautiful sonnets in
English, the man who could put
kings and commoners
side by side on stage
and whose works can
still make an audience
weep with sorrow or laughter.
William Shakespeare, The Bard,
one of England's greatest
achievements and exports.
Everybody with any sense
accepts this don't they?
(dramatic music)
But something about this man
and his theories
still intrigued me.
(dramatic music)
If he was right, it would change
the face of scholarship forever.
Petter is convinced
that he has discovered
so-called steganographic
codes that we know
were frequently used
during Shakespeare's day.
Just as with modern
day computers,
there has always been a need
for protecting
sensitive information.
Petter's cryptological research
has led him to
believe that the works
of William Shakespeare were
actually produced by this man,
the philosopher and
politician, Sir Francis Bacon.
The only problem of course
is, that there have been
scores of code
breakers before Petter,
happy amateurs who
have all been obsessed
with finding a hidden
truth behind Shakespeare,
but their work has
never been accepted
by professional scholars.
Surely, looking for
codes in Shakespeare is,
and will always be pointless.
Maybe I was just looking
forward to proving him
utterly, humiliatingly wrong.
(dramatic music)
Oh god.
(choir singing)
- Please have a seat.
Hi, welcome.
Would you like this hot tea?
- Yeah, that's brilliant
thanks a lot.
- I'll take this black one.
And I have some stuff over here,
because I'd like to show you.
- Yeah, sure.
- If I'm write about
this, then the reality
is indeed as fantastic
or even more so
than the imagination
because the implications
are almost terrifying
in the end,
but we'll take it
one step at a time.
- [Robert] Sure.
- Yes.
- I've looked forward
to being terrified.
- [Petter] Yes, I hope
you will stay with me
until you are terrified.
(both chuckling)
- Or appalled,
(chuckling) um, okay.
(papers rustling)
- Now this is a very nice book.
- Wow.
(dramatic music)
Petter has a facsimile
of the first folio
of Shakespeare's plays, compiled
by some of his fellow
actors after his death.
There are only about 40
original copies remaining,
each one valued at
around 15 million pounds.
It's a book that brings
together the greatest works
of drama in any language,
masterpiece after masterpiece.
Petter thinks that the
first page contains a code.
He believes it's hidden
in this dedicatory poem
by Ben Johnson, a man
who was Shakespeare's
friend, rival and in Petter's
eyes, a secret co-conspirator.
- What we have here is probably
the simplest way possible
to convey a secret message,
but it's just under your nose,
so it has been missed for
many, many, many years.
- Okay.
- [Petter] Beginning
with the first line,
This figure that
thou here seest put.
- [Robert] This figure
is usually regarded
by everyone else as referring
to the portrait of Shakespeare
on the opposite page,
but Petter thinks it's
something completely different.
- The figure is that a word
that only means one thing?
- Well, no, it can mean
rhetorical figures as well,
it can be related
to a visual image,
but I mean, if you're suggesting
what figure is related
to a code is it,
as well is it a way of--
- No, no, I was
thinking about numbers.
- Oh, okay, right.
- So, it's a figure.
- Yeah, sure of course.
- Is there a number
present here?
Look at the edge.
- [Robert] Well, oh,
two, right of course.
- This figure, two that
thou here seest put.
- Okay.
An acrostic is where the
first letter of each line
spells out a message,
it's been a popular
poetic technique for
thousands of years,
but it can also be used
as a way of communicating
a secret message to the reader.
- What could we then do?
- Well, tell us, tell us Petter.
- [Petter] This may open doors.
- [Robert] Sure.
Historically there was strict
conventions for printing poems
each line of verse should
begin with a capital letter.
In this case there seems to
be a huge typographical error.
The lowercase W should
be an uppercase letter.
- So, probably this
was done on purpose.
- [Robert] In code
history, deliberate errors
in a text are often a
hint, a clue for readers
in the know to keep searching.
- Any ideas what we can
do with T-W-O in a book?
- Well, you can turn to
page two presumeably.
- That is what I did, and
let's see what happens.
(dramatic music)
We have T-W-O here,
and also a repetition
of the lowercase W, it should
have been a capital one.
- Right.
But, I mean, where
does that take us,
are we looking for acrostics
that say three or five now
in the margins or--
- And then we could
go to it and there.
- Yeah, right.
- But you see in
the margins, yes,
because what I discovered
was this, F. Bacon.
(dramatic music)
- I see, right, so you, okay.
(dramatic music)
So Francis Bacon has
often been put forward
as the true author of
Shakespeare's works.
He was a brilliant man
fascinated by codes,
and ciphers, well-traveled
and multilingual
who combined a stellar
legal and political career
with writing works of
science and philosophy
and he was the greatest
English essayist of his age,
but most scholars
reject any suggestion
the plays in the first
folio are really by Bacon.
But, now, this is
vital to the scene
between Prospero and Miranda.
(dramatic music)
- Lend thy hand and pluck
my magic garment from me so.
- You have often begun
to tell me what I am.
- You have often begun
to tell me what I am.
- But stopped and left me
to a bootless inquisition.
- Concluding stay, not yet.
- Concluding stay, not yet.
- This is integral to
Miranda finding out
who she is, why--
- It's about identity.
- Yeah, well it is about
identity, it is indeed,
but it's specifically
about identity
which is necessary
for the development
of the plot of The
Tempest, I would say.
I mean that is interesting,
that you can relate
that thematically to
your acrostic code,
I think that is
very interesting.
Petter also thinks
there could be a code
called a Gematria hidden here.
A Gematria code is when letters
are replaced by numbers,
giving words a numerical
value, A equals one,
B equals two and so on.
The value of Bacon is 33.
The space between F and
Bacon is on line 33.
Francis Bacon equals 100,
T-W-O begins on line 100,
but the codes go deeper.
They can even in
Petter's opinion,
reveal the identity
of the author.
To understand this,
we need to go back
to the first sentence
of that dedicatory poem.
Another way to read
messages in texts,
is when words borrow
letters from the next word,
without changing the order.
This Figure can become this
figureth, meaning this figures.
- Then, what does it figure?
This figures the author.
That thou her is a
perfect anagram for
- [Robert] For
author of it right.
- Yeah.
(dramatic music)
And maybe, it could be
this figureth the authors,
because we have an E-S, but
that is more like genitive,
authoress.
- [Robert] Yeah.
- Yeah, so it's not perfect.
- Um, can I just
sort of interrupt.
- Yeah, sure, sure, sure.
- Presumably even if there
is that existing there,
that says this
figureth the author,
and actually this does
figure the author, you know.
So, actually this figure
that thou here sees put
is just exactly
another way of saying
- [Petter] This
figures the author.
- Exactly, this figures
the author, ta-da.
I mean there are still
things that I will
have to come at you
with, just particularly
to do with the writings
of Bacon himself
and how stylistically
divergent they are
from the writings
of Shakespeare.
(dramatic music)
Bacon wrote wittily
aphoristic prose
and he could certainly
turn a figurative phrase,
my favorite begins
his essay of revenge.
Revenge is a kind
of wild justice,
which the more man's
nature runs to,
the more ought law
to weed it out.
However, Bacon was a prose
writer, not a playwright.
He was a master of the
clever lucid essay,
but could he switch from the
rhetoric of the royal court
to the low-life of
London as Shakespeare
does in Henry the Fifth?
(dramatic music)
Shakespeare could read
Plutarch and obviate it
in translation if necessary.
Could Bacon really have
translated the grim
yet vibrant realities
of Elizabethan
and Jacobian life onto the
stage as Shakespeare does?
Or could he really
write page after page
of largely iambic verse
so naturally and sweetly,
that it flows like water?
For me, Bacon's
refinement and elegance
as a prose stylist
and a philosopher
does not equate to the skills
required in a great dramatist.
(dramatic music)
You know, in Francis
Bacon, I see a legalistic,
a clever, a witty, a
rhetorical, a brilliant mind.
I don't see the imagination
which could explore
the entirety of humanity
which I see in here.
- And this Robert
is why I suggest
that you keep in
mind the word two,
- Okay.
- Number two, perhaps.
- [Robert] There
are two personae.
This Figureth the
authores, the two authors.
Petter believes that it is
highly likely that this code
is a signature of Francis Bacon,
one of the two secret authors
behind Shakespeare's works.
So, if their are two secret
authors, who is the other one?
- Let me show you something
else, that Ben Johnson wrote.
This is from his epigrams
to Sir Henry Nevil.
- [Robert] Johnson, the
apparent conspirator,
also wrote a poem to
the courtier diplomat,
Sir Henry Nevil,
Francis Bacon's nephew
and a distant relative
of a certain
William Shakespeare.
- And there is a
parallel here between
this line and this
line in punning
and also what I'd
like you to discover,
because if Figure could
mean a number here.
- [Robert] Right.
- So, can you see it?
- Well presumably, if you're
trying to find a link here,
then thou art not one.
- Yeah, thou art not one.
Look at the edge.
- [Robert] Well it's got
that, it's the same letters
aren't they, pretty much.
- Well, oh, two, right
of course and then.
- [Petter] Thou are not
one, but probably two.
(dramatic music)
- [Robert] Here
we have two poems,
perhaps pointing the way
to the secret co-authorship
of two men, Francis Bacon
and Sir Henry Nevil.
The two men were contemporaries,
both walking the
corridors of power
in the Elizabethan and Jacobian
periods at the same time.
- [Petter] Well in,
it's an anagram.
- [Robert] Petter also points
out an anagram of Nevil's name
in the poem just underneath
the letter O of two.
Of course this only
works if you remember
that in 17th century
printing practice,
the letters W, V and U
were all interchangeable.
- And look here.
- [Robert] On page two of
The Tempest, below another O,
the name Nevil
stares out at you.
Okay, so, but where'd
you go from there?
Is that not itself
a dead end, well?
- There's no dead end in this.
- [Robert] Okay,
well what's the next
path that we have to go on then?
- [Petter] Yeah, I began
to look on the internet.
- [Robert] Petter searched
for the word Bacon
in Shakespeare's complete works.
He discovered that it appears
just twice in two
separate plays.
And did that not make you
feel a little bit downhearted?
That you would presume that
it would be in every play,
that he'd manage a way
to crowbar the word bacon
in somewhere and yet
you only find it twice,
didn't it make your spirit
sink a little at first?
- Quite the contrary.
- Why?
- [Petter] Perhaps it was
used with ultimate care.
- [Robert] The first folio
is divided into three parts,
Comedies, Histories
and Tragedies.
The first time bacon is
mentioned is in a Comedy,
The Merry Wives of Windsor.
- [Petter] Hang-hog
is latin for Bacon.
- [Robert] Right, well,
again, my initial instinct
is to relate that to
Shakespeare the dramatist.
- What is he William
that does lend articles?
- Hinc, hang, hog.
- Yeah, accusativo hinc hang hog
and a hog a bit of pig
that is hung to be cured
and then eaten is bacon.
- Hung hang hog.
- And suddenly we have a
double-edged comedic effect.
Then his mistress
quickly comes in and says
Oh, hang-hog
- Hang-hog
- is latin for bacon.
- is latin for bacon
I warrant ya.
(dramatic music)
- [Petter] But then we
go to the Histories part.
- [Robert] In part two of
the folio, Bacon is mentioned
for the second and
last time, in the play
King Henry the Fourth Part One.
- I have a gammon of bacon
and two razors of ginger,
to be delivered as
far as Charing-cross.
(dramatic music)
- Okay, what does this tell us,
other than the fact
that Shakespeare has
used Bacon twice?
- Exactly, but any
similarities here,
this page and this page?
- Just turn back again.
Right, you'll have to
help me I'm afraid.
- In the order of page numbers.
- Oh, I see!
Right.
That is interesting.
- [Petter] 53 and 53.
(dramatic music)
- [Robert] Each of
the three sections
of the first folio is
numbered separately.
Bacon is mentioned in
the two different plays,
but both times on page 53.
(dramatic music)
This seems deliberate.
It looks as if an extra
two page comic interlude
has been added to
the courtier version
of the Merry Wives of Windsor,
simply to ensure
the Bacon reference
appears on page 53 and in
Henry the Fourth, Part One,
the typographers also
seem to have gone
to a lot of trouble
to make sure Bacon
appears on page 53.
To make it work, the page
numbers actually skip
from page 46 to 49.
- So, this is really page 51.
- Right, but.
- And now it's 53.
- And you think
that's deliberate
just to make the
connection between
the two Bacon references?
- Because of the
significance of 53
and what about the third 53,
because we have Comedies,
Histories and Tragedies.
- [Robert] Okay, let's
have a look then.
- Which play do we have, the
beginning of Romeo and Juliet
and what Robert is missing here?
Something with households.
- Ah, yeah of course, we haven't
got the prologue have we?
- [Petter] No, and this
is the only prologue
beginning with which word?
- Um, well it's two
households, right.
- Yes, it's
interesting isn't it?
- It is interesting yeah.
Wouldn't that be
more likely though
if you'd had the prologue,
wouldn't that have been
perhaps the more significant.
- Perhaps the mention that
there's just two, not three.
- [Robert] Okay.
Of course it also fits
Petter's theories,
that just below the number
53 we see the phrase
I know a trick worth two.
(dramatic music)
- 53 is the answer.
- 53.
- Two times 53 perhaps.
- Right, okay.
In the 17th century,
a mysterious,
but influential
brotherhood emerged.
To them two numbers had
special symbolic significance,
53 and 106, this fraternity
has always been shrouded
in myth, but one of
the most tenacious,
is that Francis
Bacon was its leader.
Alright, thank you Petter.
(dramatic music)
Well, it was all
potentially very exciting,
but I couldn't shake the feeling
that if you're intent on
finding secret messages
in any large piece of text,
then by hook or by crook,
you will find them.
Nearly 70 people
have been put forward
as candidates for the authorship
of the works of Shakespeare
Petter is obviously
convinced that it was Bacon
and Sir Henry Nevil but
others have been just as
passionately certain that
it was Christopher Marlowe,
The Earl of Oxford, or even
Queen Elizabeth herself.
(dramatic music)
- It's you know, it was
Bacon and it was Marlowe,
then it was the Earl of Oxford.
The Earl of Oxford is
the most common one now,
but all there are
about 60 odd people,
this in the last five years.
It's been Sir Henry Nevil,
nobody had ever heard of him
in terms, well in terms
of Shakespeare before,
Lady Mary Sydney, someone has
just written a book trying,
now I would have thought
that any dispassionate person
would say 60 people
have been suggested,
this in itself shows it's
all nonsense, you know.
If it's, if the field is as
open as that, where are we?
(dramatic music)
With such a crowded
field, it's hard
to take any of them seriously.
It is interesting however,
that Francis Bacon was the
first alternative author
to be suggested in
the 19th Century
and Sir Henry Nevil,
one of the most recent.
Maybe Petter is
completing the circle,
and closing the book on
the authorship question.
(dramatic music)
- [Petter] We call this fuk.
- [Robert] You call it what?
- [Petter] Fuk.
(Robert chuckling)
- [Petter] What is that?
- [Robert] Fair enough.
- Okay, we're almost there.
- See, that's cold now.
- It's slippy there.
- Yeah, I'm fine.
(muffled stomping)
(muffled thump)
(keys rattling)
- Welcome.
- Thank you Petter.
- So, okay Robert.
- Hi Petter.
What I'm suggesting, I suppose,
is because you've
suddenly got these
little floating letters,
your brain, inevitably,
works overtime to find some
kind of interpretation.
We always seek explication,
we seek answers.
- What you really do
is to pull this apart
and make it disintegrate
before it has
the chance to become something.
- Well, okay, well
in that case, help,
let's bring it back
together, let's move on.
- So this is my
point, so, back to 53
and two times 53, because
it appears that from my
occult experience, my
dabbling with the occult,
I knew the significance
of 106, which is 53 twice.
A Proto-Masonic fraternity
published two significant books
around the same time that
William Shakespeare died.
- And who was this fraternity?
- Rosicrucians.
- The Rosicrucians.
In 1614 and 1615,
two mysterious books
were published in Germany.
- The first book is
called Fama Fraternitatis,
the Fame of the Brotherhood.
The second is called
Confessio, Confession.
- In print, it
starts a revolution,
because people
read this document
inviting them to join the
brotherhood of the Rose Cross.
- [Robert] The Rosicrucian
manifestos tell us
that their founder
Father R.C. died
at the symbolic age of 106.
The brotherhood celebrated
the power of freedom of speech
and wanted access to knowledge
for all levels of society.
- Lutheran reformation
was a disaster, a failure.
It had split Europe assunder.
It had made men of
learning hate each other.
It had made it impossible
for people who had big ideas
to come together and
talk because the Pope
was always sitting in
the room saying no.
Or Zwingly was sitting
in the room saying no,
or Calvin was sitting in
the room and saying no.
Where was knowledge going?
- [Robert] The Rosicrucians
claimed to be a secret
European network of
brothers, recruited under
a sacred oath who
called themselves RC.
- So the letters RC
they are important.
- [Robert] One of
the key figures
associated with the Rosicrucians
has always been Francis Bacon
and many of his books
bear the watermark RC.
- RC, so.
- Oh yeah!
- [Petter] Also on page 53.
- [Robert] Petter believes
he has found numerical codes
connected to the Rosicrucians
in the first folio.
The brotherhood were
obsessed with the numberology
or Gamatria of Kabbalah.
In this system, the
letters RC can be converted
to the numbers 17 and three.
R is the 17th letter
of the alphabet,
C is the third, an
encoded way of writing RC
would therefore be 17 and three.
On page 173 of the first folio,
we find the opening page of
Richard the Third, or RC.
On this page there is
also a Masonic expression,
which only appears once
in the first folio.
- He harkens after
prophesies and dreams
and from the crossroad
plucks the letter G.
- [Robert] The
phrase the letter G,
which could refer to the G
in the emblem of Freemasonry.
There can also be Rosicrucian
codes similar to this
in one of the poems
written by Ben Johnson
as a eulogistic tribute to
Shakespeare in the first folio.
- [Petter] Look at this,
it is the famous poem,
To The Memory of My
Beloved, The Author.
10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.
- [Robert] The
17th word is Fame.
The first Rosicrucian manifesto.
- One, two, three.
- [Robert] And
three words later,
we find confess, the second
Rosicrucian manifesto.
- [Petter] 17 and three, RC.
I think this is interesting.
- So the things, it all works
in terms of the numbering.
It works.
- But what does it mean?
- But quite.
Ben Johnson mentions
the Rosicrucians
several times in his writings.
- So he was familiar
with this term
- [Robert] Whether he was a
full member of the brotherhood,
or merely offering a coded
tribute to them in the poem,
we simply don't know.
Nobody in this period admits
to being a Rosicrucian.
This may be because
the manifesto's message
was regarded as so explosive,
that it caused uproar
throughout Europe.
Political and religious
authorities joined forces
to condemn and hunt down
suspected Rosicrucians
as dangerous subversives.
(dramatic music)
- There are Rosicrucian witches,
and these witches are subverting
the destiny of Europe,
and they must be stopped,
but there was one problem
with the Rosicrucian witches,
they were invisible,
how did you know
who was a Rosicrucian?
Renee Descartes, the famous
philosopher is in Paris,
he's stopped by
government agents,
they arrest him, they say you're
one of these Rosicrucians.
He says how can I be a
Rosicrucian, I'm not invisible.
- So they were really famous.
So it's not a very radical idea
that Ben Johnson
could have done this.
- Just to play devil's advocate,
it's also necessary to
say that the word Fame
is not necessarily unusual
in a dedicatory poem.
- [Petter] No, and something
one should confess.
- Well exactly, something
one should confess, exactly.
So where do we go from there,
what are we looking at now?
- Yes, well what I did was
to turn to my computer,
to look for occurrences
of Rosy Cross.
- [Robert] Right.
The phrase Rosy
Cross appears nowhere
in the complete
works of Shakespeare.
You can look for the
words separately,
but in a devoutly Christian era,
you're going to find
cross everywhere.
- And because I find
it all over the place,
it becomes useless.
- Right.
- But Rosy, that's
something else.
- Okay, right and how many then?
- Twice, in the folio.
- Well show, let's have
a look where they are.
(dramatic music)
The word rosy appears just
twice in the first folio
and both times in the
late play Cymbeline.
One rosy can be seen three pages
before the end of the folio
and the other one appears
17 pages before that
on a strangely misnumbered page,
with the potentially
revealing words,
being corrupted underneath.
- We are all bastards.
Oh vengeance of vengeance.
- Oh vengeance of vengeance.
- Me of my lawful
- Me of my lawful
- pleasure she restrained
- pleasure she restrained
- and prayed me
- and prayed me
- off forebearance
- off forebearance
- That with a pudency so rosy
- That with a pudency so rosy
- The sweet view on't
- The sweet view on't
- Might well have
- Might well have
- warm'd old Saturn.
- warm'd old Saturn.
(dramatic music)
- Pudency so rosy right.
I mean, for me it
fits with this idea
of the idealization of
women, which is inevitably
destroyed by the
deceit of Iachimo,
so why do you think that
the word rosy is here?
- [Petter] Published
by or issued by,
often you'll see in
books, apud, so apud.
- [Robert] By,
published by, right.
- Printed by, published
by issued by, by.
- Okay, right.
- [Petter] The beginning
of this line with rosy,
there is a certain set
of by, four letters.
- [Robert] Oh, yes,
a pudency apt put.
Published by Rosy.
- But it becomes better.
- Okay.
- Because they use geometry,
some kind of trinity
they worship, the Pythagorean
three, four, five triangle.
(dramatic music)
- The symbol of the Rosicrucian.
- Exactly.
- Right.
- That is the
significance of 53.
- Okay.
- Because where the sides
five and three meet,
the angle is 53 degrees.
(dramatic music)
Without the Masonic training,
this wouldn't have
meant anything to me.
- Sure, oh so are
you a Mason yourself?
- For several years, I'm a
passive member right now,
but we have apud, potentially,
we definitely have Rosie,
but we don't have a cross do we?
- Where is the cross?
- It's right here.
(dramatic music)
Look.
C-R-O-S-S.
And what they produce
is nothing less
than a perfect three,
four, five, triangle.
- Right.
- [Petter] And apud
rosie cross is 173.
- Right.
And that's certainly there,
that's, I mean that, that is.
- It cannot be denied.
- No.
(dramatic music)
- This could open all
sorts of interesting.
- Well and I mean
that, that's certainly,
yeah that is...
(dramatic music)
This part of
Petter's presentation
was genuinely thought provoking.
For the sake of argument,
let's accept the presence
of these codes in
the first folio.
Why would the
Rosicrucians be interested
in the theater anyway?
(dramatic music)
- Was there a
Rosicrucian theater?
I think there is definite
elements of this.
The writer of the
Shakespeare plays
is at great pains to
educate his audience.
Was the author of
Shakespeare using the idea
of a divine play as a
way of saying things
to the illiterate who
couldn't read these books,
who couldn't join the
great intellectual game
which had been going on
since the Renaissance?
(dramatic music)
- The truth appears
so naked on my side
that any purblind
eye may find it out.
(dramatic music)
- [Robert] As an art
form which could appeal
to audiences across
the social spectrum,
including the illiterate,
plays were perhaps
the most effective way
to disseminate knowledge
about history, religion,
politics and science
and Shakespeare's plays
are full of this knowledge
which the Rosicrucians were
dedicated to spreading.
That's very interesting.
- Thank you.
- But well, it's true.
But what's, so what's
next, what's next.
Where, I mean is this just as.
- We have to go Stratford.
- Right, okay.
- Of course there
is a next step,
but it's not here.
- Okay.
- But I have to do my skiing
instructor job first, so.
- Oh yeah, yeah, yeah exactly.
- [Robert] So before we could
catch the plane to England,
Petter had to go off to his job
as a children's ski instructor,
while I went off to think.
All this talk about codes
and secret societies
was intriguing, but the
idea that you could unlock
the mysteries of the universe,
as well as the
authorship of Shakespeare
with the number 53 was
pretty far-fetched.
- [Ticket Agent] Gate 53
(speaking in foreign language)
Have a nice flight.
- Thank you.
(dramatic music)
Well, there are huge
implications in a
way, if he's right.
It will change our
assumptions of conspiracy
and the very nature
of things being hidden
from general consumption.
It will I think, make a lot
of us feel a bit foolish
and maybe a bit
sad if he's right.
(dramatic music)
Before we could go to Stratford,
Petter wanted to
show me some texts
that he believed
supported his ideas,
so we went to the
British Library.
(dramatic music)
Here is one of the Baconian's
most important
pieces of evidence
that Bacon wrote
Shakespeare, the Promus.
- What if we could
find a notebook
with Shakespearian quotes?
- Right.
- And this is it.
- Okay.
- And this is of course,
Francis Bacon's notebook.
There are some really
famous lines in here,
and it's dated 1594,
five or six years before
the play that made them
famous were written.
- Right, show me, show me some
of these quotations,
I'm fascinated.
(dramatic music)
- Good wine needs no bush.
Hear me out you were never in.
Shut the door for I
mean to speak treason.
It seems like an actor's line.
- It does seem like--
- Shut the door for I
mean to speak treason.
(dramatic music)
A fool's bolt is soon shot.
Thought is free.
- You call this evidence?
- I call it interesting.
- I am not just skeptical of,
but utterly frustrated
with this piece
of so-called evidence.
In the world of
Renaissance Humanism,
with ideas and language
swirling around
the literary and
political worlds,
it's surely inevitable
that intelligent,
sophisticated men of
the law, the theater
and the courts would be
saying, writing, thinking
the same sorts of things.
This proves nothing.
- I have never seen anything
which casts any doubt
whatever, on Shakespeare's
authorship of the plays.
Of course writers write
the same things sometimes.
- I almost think this does
you a disservice actually
and your argument a disservice,
because frankly if we
were expecting this
to somehow prove
that there was this
interesting flow of knowledge
between Francis Bacon
and Shakespeare they I would
expect every other line
to be his real
quotations from what
we know from the
plays and it's not.
- But, if that were the case
would it have an impact?
- Well, if that was
the case, then yeah,
that would be certainly
much more interesting.
- Okay, because that
is what Mrs. Pott did.
- Right and was her
first name Crack?
- Very good one.
- Mrs. Pott published a
book in the 19th century
which endeavored to find
links between the notebook
of Francis Bacon, the Promus
and the works of
William Shakespeare
and yes, sometimes they
did use the same proverbs
or poetic quotations, but
Mrs. Potts also expects us
to be astonished
when both Shakespeare
and Bacon include such
earth-shatteringly
identical phrases
as more or less, you have
and the single word well.
(dramatic music)
The journey continues.
Between the British
Library in London,
and Stratford-upon-Avon,
Shakespeare's hometown,
by St. Alban's
Bacon's birthplace,
here is a unique artistic
treasure which seems
to link the two
writers, which I for one
have never heard about before.
So this is St.
Alban's Cathedral?
- This is St. Alban's Cathedral.
It is not there for
we are in St. Alban's.
- Okay.
- So in case you
think I'm a crackpot,
we will mend it
now, come please.
- Oh, we're actually
going, we're going in here?
(bell ringing)
Oh wow.
Well what a fantastic, oh
god, wow, it is amazing.
- [Petter] It is a
national treasure,
according to Clive Rose.
- This is beautiful.
And there's The Death of Adonis.
- Yes and the boar behind him.
- [Robert] Well look how
brilliant the boar looks.
Look at that fang, fantastic.
Aw, the horses are
just oh it's amazing.
- And you know what, it
is from just before 1600,
so this is the only
contemporary painting
discovered by
Shakespearean theme.
It would have been
much more neat
if this had been discovered
in Stratford-upon-Avon
and not here in enemy territory.
- Yeah.
Shakespeare's great
poem Venus and Adonis
forms a major part
of my doctorate,
and here is a
depiction of the story
showing young Adonis
killed by a boar
with the goddess of
love powerless to help
and it's here in St. Alban's,
the town most closely associated
with Sir Francis Bacon.
(dramatic music)
I had no idea it was here, and
it certainly makes me think.
It's um, it's beautiful.
Even if it's here, even
if it's in St. Alban's,
even if I know that Francis
Bacon walked along that street
and came into this
room every single day
and in fact even if I
knew that Francis Bacon
took up a paintbrush
and painted it himself,
it still, to my
mind, does not prove
that Francis Bacon was the
writer of Venus and Adonis.
- It looks like a family
in character up there.
- [Robert] Where, it's not.
- Sitting on there on the horse.
- [Robert] Sitting on the horse.
Yeah, look you see
the, the orange thing,
that's a mustache
above the rough.
- You get it at
completely wrong angle,
if you see it from
here, it's much more.
- Well, well, well, no,
I've seen it from there
and I've seen it from here
and that's a big mustache.
- [Petter] Yeah, but
the, the ritual nose.
- It's definitely, no, it's
definitely a man, right.
Look, it's definitely a man.
- [Petter] I agree
from here it is a man.
It's Francis Bacon in his hat.
- [Robert] It's not
Francis Bacon in his hat.
- [Petter] Yeah, it is.
- [Robert] They all
look like Francis Bacon.
- [Petter] Then they
must be Francis Bacon.
(dramatic music)
- [Robert] We travel
next, to the far northeast
of England, to Alnwick Castle,
the ancient seat of the
Dukes of Northumberland.
Petter is apparently
going to show me
a document which is kept here
and which for Baconians
is the smoking gun,
the holy grail of
their argument.
Hi, I'm Robert.
- I'm Petter.
(dramatic music)
- [Robert] Scholars have trolled
through every
scrap of paper from
the Elizabethan and
Jacobian periods,
however there are
relatively few documents
which we know about,
which are signed by
or make reference to
William Shakespeare.
But there is one document
which is rarely mentioned
by biographers of Shakespeare,
one document in which
Shakespeare's name
is written a dozen times.
(dramatic music)
- It here begins if you'd
like to take a peek.
- [Robert] The
Northumberland manuscript
is a small document,
damaged by fire.
It was originally wrapped
around a collection
of handwritten Bacon documents.
(dramatic music)
On the manuscript there
is a table of contents
and the names Francis Bacon
and William Shakespeare.
The Shakespeare plays
Richard the Second
and Richard the Third are
mentioned in a context
which might suggest that
Francis Bacon was their author.
- It says by the same author,
with Francis written
twice, once properly
and once reversed so it says
Francis William Shakespeare.
It seems to be an attempt to try
to experiment with a signature.
- Oh, well I mean, that's
just absolutely conjecture
though isn't it.
- Yeah, but have a look.
- Well, I'm, I'm, I mean,
I can see, I can see.
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
- Well what do you think
all this Will and William
Shakespeare, Shakespeare
below, what does it.
- To be honest
Petter, I don't feel
in a position to speculate.
- No?
- I, I don't know, quite
know what to say about them.
(dramatic music)
Those who see this
manuscript as a smoking gun
point out that this is the
only document in existence
which contains Shakespeare's
name, the titles
of some of his plays and even
some quotations from them.
- And it also introduces
the word Nevil,
the name Nevil here.
- Show me.
- Here it says Nevil,
so it has been suspected
that this has been
ordered either by Nevil
or by Francis Bacon.
- Well, it's um,
it's fascinating.
- Yes it is.
- Yeah, I mean I don't
really know what to say.
- No, but down here
there is this section,
Isle of Bute fragment
by Thomas Nash.
- [Robert] Frankly though,
while the Northumberland
manuscript seems impressive,
we don't know who wrote it.
Thomas Nash, a famous
Elizabethan Satirist
is also there, does
Petter also think
he was involved in this too?
So Francis Bacon also wrote
Thomas Nash, is that correct?
- No, I don't say that.
- Oh, but why is Thomas
Nash on this page,
on this Francis
Bacon page, I mean.
- It could have been a
compilation of manuscripts on--
- Quite, well.
- At some time.
- Well, there you go.
- But this is the only
contemporary manuscript
combining the words
Shakespeare and Bacon,
this is special.
Nevil and Bacon had a part
in the project Shakespeare
and they were both associates.
- [Robert] It felt
like an ambush.
It was the first
piece of evidence
which could maybe pierce
the armor of my skepticism
and I'd been given no
time to research it.
- It's actually wonderful
to be this close to it.
- I was not happy.
I'm just gonna stop you
there for one second Petter.
Yeah, can I have
a separate word?
I still don't believe that
Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare,
but could Shakespeare
have been involved
in the brotherhood
of the Rosy Cross
and perhaps even
have collaborated
with Bacon, Nevil and others
committed to their ideals?
(dramatic music)
Or did the Rosicrucians
get involved
after Shakespeare's death,
skillfully inserting their codes
into the first folio
for their own purposes?
(dramatic music)
But why would they want
to hijack the typesetting
and publication of these plays,
a process that must have been
time consuming and costly?
What was the point?
These are questions that
remain to be answered,
but there did seem
a deliberateness
to many of the codes that
Petter had pointed out to me.
A crafted quality that appeared
to transcend coincidence.
(dramatic music)
