Cast of Characters

The Cecils

Sir William Cecil (1520-1598)

Queen Elizabeth's greatest statesman, Elizabeth's voice in Parliament; successively Secretary of State (1558-1572) and Lord Treasurer (1572-1598). He was also Elizabeth's chief spymaster (working with Sir Francis Walsingham). As Master of the Court of Wards, he was the guardian of Edward de Vere and later of Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. He was instrumental in executing both Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and Mary Queen of Scots.

Often identified with Shakespeare's Polonius. Hamlet's remark to Polonius, "You are a fishmonger," refers among other things to the Cecil's Fast bill of 1563, in which Cecil attempted to force all Englishmen to eat fish on Wednesdays.

Mildred Cooke Cecil (d. 1588)

Daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, Edward VI's tutor, she married Sir William Cecil in 1545. Roger Ascham said that she and Lady Jane Grey were the two most learned ladies in England.

Her younger sisters formed a distinguished Elizabethan artistic circle. Her sister Anne married Sir Nicholas Bacon and was the mother of Anthony Bacon and of Francis Bacon (considered one of the candidates for Shakespeare). Her other sisters married Sir Thomas Hoby and Henry Killigrew, both important in literature and music; Sir Thomas Hoby translated The Courtier, on which Shakespeare draws extensively for Hamlet.

Anne Cecil (1556-1588)

Her father's favorite daughter. Married at 15 to Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, a marriage as difficult as his father's to his first wife. In 1576 Oxford accused Anne of infidelity, and for some years apparently thought that their eldest daughter, Elizabeth, was not his. She was supposed to have reconciled herself to him through the bed trick used in two of Shakespeare's plays, All's Well that Ends Well and Measure for Measure. She bore him five children, but no surviving son, and died in 1588.

Oxfordians sometimes identify her with Shakespeare's Ophelia.

Sir Robert Cecil (1563-1612)

Son and political heir of Sir William Cecil; younger brother of Anne Cecil; brother-in-law of Oxford. A brilliant political mind in a frail and hunchbacked body. Succeeding his father as Queen Elizabeth's chief minister, he masterminded King James's accession and directed the first and most successful years of James's reign. May have been the force behind the transformation of Shakespeare's company of players, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, into the King's Men in 1603, as part of a desire to exert greater censorship over the stage. May be Laertes in Hamlet, possibly with his brother; may be "Richard Crookback," the hunchbacked R.C., in Richard III.

The Veres

John de Vere (abt 1516- 1562)

Father of Edward de Vere, seventeenth earl of Oxford. His mother was Elizabeth Trussell of Kibblestone, apparently a relative of Shakespeare. His first wife, Dorothy Neville, was a daughter of the Earl of Westmoreland; by her he had Catherine de Vere, Baroness Windsor, who with her husband is present at the first night of Twelfth Night. His second wife was Marjorie Golding, whom he married 1 August 1548; their children were Mary de Vere, who married Baron Willoughby d'Eresby, and Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. He was known for his courage, was a patron of an acting company, and died when Oxford was twelve.

Marjorie Golding was the sister of Arthur Golding, translator of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Shakespeare's favorite source.

Frances de Vere (1517-1577)

Daughter of John de Vere, the fifteenth Earl of Oxford, and Elizabeth Trussell, apparently a relative of Shakespeare; sister of John de Vere, 16th Earl; aunt of Edward de Vere. Married Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and a poetic precursor of Shakespeare, at 14 or 15, in 1532. Mother of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and of Lord Henry Howard, the appalling Roman Catholic intriguer.

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550-1604)

Candidate to have written the Shakespeare plays. Courtier, poet, patron of writers and of acting companies.

His training and experience strongly resemble what can be deduced of the author of the Shakespeare plays. For example:

• He was acquainted with the owners of most of the large libraries in England, a necessary thing for a man who read as widely as Shakespeare.
• Like Shakespeare (as far as we can tell from the plays), he had legal training; he served in the military; he knew some Anglo-Saxon; he traveled in the areas of France and Italy Shakespeare writes about.
• He is said to have written plays. He lived near the Theatre and acted at the Inns of Court and at Court. He wrote poems and at least one masque-like play as part of a tournament; a new poem, the 1200-line "Paine of Pleasure," has recently been identified as his.

He was related to many people known to Shakespeare. For example, he was:

• Nephew of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, an important precursor of Shakespeare in the sonnet form and in blank verse.
• Grandson of Elizabeth Trussell, apparently a relative of Mary Arden, mother of William Shakespeare of Stratford.
• Nephew of Arthur Golding, translator of Ovid's Metamorphoses, an important Shakespeare source.
• Ward and later son-in-law of Sir William Cecil, identified with Shakespeare's Polonius.
• Husband of Anne Cecil, sometimes identified with Shakespeare's Ophelia, and brother-in-law of Thomas Cecil and Robert Cecil, thought to have inspired Shakespeare's Laertes.
• Employer of John Lyly and of Anthony Munday, whose work is associated with Shakespeare's plays.
• Descendant of the Earls of Oxford, treated very nicely in Shakespeare's history plays.

His daughters Elizabeth, Bridget, and Susan all have Shakespearean connections.

Elizabeth de Vere (1575-1627)

Engaged, at Cecil's insistence, to Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, who broke it off in late 1594. Married William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby, 26 January 1595; A Midsummer Night's Dream may have been written for performance at their marriage banquet.

Bridget de Vere (1584-1631)

Proposed for William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, 1597, one of the two brothers to whom the First Folio is dedicated, but married Francis Norrys, Baron Norrys of Rycote, 1598.

Susan de Vere (1587-1629)

Oxford's youngest daughter; she grew up in the household of her grandfather, Sir William Cecil, and became a Maid of Honour in the household of Queen Anne, James's queen. On 27 December 1604 she married Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery. During that Christmas season at Court, eight Shakespeare plays were performed--a record number.

As part of Queen Anne's household, she performed in all four of Jonson's masques between 1605-1610--one of only three ladies of the court who took part in all four. The other two were Queen Anne herself and Susan de Vere's mother-in-law, Mary Sidney Herbert, the legendary Countess of Pembroke.

The couple had ten children. Susan died in 1629 and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

The Howards

Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel (1557-1595)

Eldest son of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. In 1581 he and Oxford tilted at the tournament in which Oxford played the Knight of the Tree of the Sun and wrote an extant speech about loyalty.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517 - beheaded 1547)

First cousin of Anne Boleyn, thereby making his children second cousins of her daughter Queen Elizabeth. Married Frances de Vere, Oxford's aunt, in 1532. If King Henry had had no children, Surrey's father would have been next heir. Tried for treason (to some degree, this was a frame-up by the Seymours) and executed in 1547. A major poet. With Sir Thomas Wyatt, introduced the Shakespearean sonnet form into English; was also the first English poet to use blank verse.

Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk (1536 - beheaded 1572)

Oxford's cousin. His father was the poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey; his mother, Frances de Vere, Oxford's aunt. Oxford deeply admired him. In 1571 Norfolk became enmeshed in a plot by which he would marry Mary Queen of Scots and their children would become Queen Elizabeth's successors. According to testimony before the Star Chamber, Oxford planned to rescue Norfolk and have him conveyed by boat to Spain. But this plan, if it ever existed, came to nothing, and Norfolk was executed for treason in 1572.

Norfolk's younger brother was Lord Henry Howard, whom Oxford betrayed as a Catholic in 1580. His son was Philip Howard, earl of Arundel, whom Oxford fought in 1581.

Many members of the Howard family are included in the audience invited to the first night of Twelfth Night.

Husbands and Lovers

Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery
(later Earl of Pembroke; 1584 - 1650)

Married 27 December 1604 Susan de Vere. With his brother William, he is the dedicatee of the First Folio. In 1618 Jaggard, the publisher of the First Folio, dedicated Archaio-Ploutos to him and his wife Susan. After his brother's death in 1630, Philip Herbert became Earl of Pembroke.

Quoted from http://www.compapp.dcu.ie/~humphrys , a family genealogy by Dr. Mark Humphrys:

"The Herbert family had numerous connections with Shakespeare, and also, interestingly, with Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, who some claim is the real Shakespeare:

William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke (1580-1630)

Elder son of Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, and nephew of Sir Philip Sidney. A marriage was proposed between him and Bridget de Vere, Oxford's second surviving daughter, in 1597, but it did not take place. However, his younger brother Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery, married Bridget's younger sister Susan.

In 1615-25 he served as Lord Chamberlain, in which position he controlled what plays could be published; during this period Shakespeare's First Folio (1623) was published, dedicated to him and his brother Philip.

He has sometimes been identified with the "Mr. W. H." mentioned in the publisher's dedication of the 1609 edition of the Sonnets.

Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton (1573-1624)

Ward of Sir William Cecil after the death of his father (1581). Came to court in 1590. Cecil, as his guardian, then ordered him to marry Elizabeth de Vere, Oxford's eldest daughter. Sonnets 1-17 may concern this marriage (they are similar to a poem about his marriage known to be addressed to him, John Clapham's Narcissus, 1591). Shakespeare dedicated Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594) to him. Southampton is frequently identified with the Fair Youth of the Sonnets.

He begged off marrying Elizabeth de Vere, paying a large penalty to Cecil. Elizabeth de Vere soon afterward married William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby.

He was involved in the Essex Rebellion (1601) and is supposed to have been the person who arranged for the performance of Shakespeare's Richard II, which included the deposition scene.

William Stanley, Earl of Derby (ca 1561-1642)

An avid traveler, adventurer, and patron of players, William Stanley became the sixth Earl of Derby upon the death of his brother Ferdinando (a poet, the patron of Lord Strange's Men, and patron of Greene, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Spenser). William Stanley also maintained his own company of players, Derby's Men. In 1599 a spy reported that he could not be interested in the Catholic cause, being too busy writing "comedies for the common players."

He has sometimes been supposed to be the author of Shakespeare's plays.

He married Elizabeth de Vere in 1595. For this marriage, it is conjectured, A Midsummer Night's Dream may have been written. She died in 1626, having given him three sons and three daughters.

Poets, Writers, and Cousins

Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)

Courtier, soldier, statesman, poet; son-in-law of Sir Francis Walsingham, the spymaster; nephew of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester; was to have married Anne Cecil, but the marriage was quashed because Sidney was not rich enough; quarreled famously with Oxford in 1579. His sister. Mary Sidney Herbert, became the Countess of Pembroke and was patroness to many of the most illustrious writers of the period.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Nephew of Mildred Cooke Cecil, and therefore first cousin to Anne Cecil and (by Elizabethan extended families) cousin to Oxford. Scientist, author, and statesman, counselor to King James after the death of his cousin and apparent enemy Sir Robert Cecil, he is sometimes thought to have been Shakespeare; but there is no need to make a Shakespeare of a man who is so brilliantly Bacon.