…Shakespeare’s patron the Earl of Southampton was prepared to go to the Tower for his friend the Earl of Essex. And all because of some deal he (Essex) made with an Irish chieftain in the middle of a river with no-one around to hear what they really talked about. Add to that a failed rebellion against the almost dead Elizabeth 1st, and he (Essex) forfeited his life for the Irish question.
Lacey Baldwin Smith reveals an awful lot more in her book ‘Paranoia and Treason in Tudor England’ about Essex in particular. And makes a brilliant case for the paranoid state of education in Elizabethan England.
And as for the SHakespeare Ireland thing, check out this link for the far down the line conspiracy theory that Shakespeare was Irish!!!
As for myself, today I pretend to be Irish in Irish pubs in den Bosch and Oosterhout, pimping Bushmills Whiskey (note the extra ‘e’, which stands for excellence) with a story or two in exchange for a taste of the Bushmill’s Original.
A sample can be seen HERE. An actor’s life for me….
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