Edward Devere

            For the past century, a controversy has plagued the literary world; who wrote the famous "Shakespeare" plays. The two main candidates are, obviously, William Shakespeare and a noble who was involved with Shakespeare's acting company, Edward Devere. Devere led "an existence more Shakespearean than Shakespeare's" (Chua-Eoan 75). The well known Shakespeare led a life that had little, if any parallels to his writings, plays and sonnets. The more likely candidate, Devere, led a very similar life to his writings. All the evidence points to the well educated, respectable, Devere as the mastermind behind the most revered plays of all time, not the uneducated, poor man, Shakespeare. There is no question that Devere wrote the plays.
             Devere grew up under the care of Lord Burghley, meeting Henry Wriothsley through Lord Burghley. The relationship between the two would later turn into a homoerotic obsession on Devere's part, one reason to hide his name in the publishing of the plays. Another reason is that in his time, nobles were frowned upon if they wrote or were in any way physically involved in the arts. The nobility was expected to govern. If Devere printed under his name it would suggest that he was spending his time writing excellent plays and sonnets and not running the country as was expected of him. On the family crest of Devere there is a lion shaking a spear, a sign that Oxfordian's point to as the reason to pick Shakespeare as the pseudonym for Devere, as an inside joke that only his close friends would understand. Others point to this fact combined with the fact that the Greek goddess of theater was known as the spear shaker as yet another reason for him to take such a pseudonym. It all fit together when in the acting company that he sponsored, Lord Chamberlain's Men (he was Lord Chamberlain), there was a man, Shakspur, who had a similar name to his desired pseudonym. In addition there is undeniable proof that Devere had an excellent education from the beginning, whereas there is no proof of Shakespeare's education.