Amelia Bassano Lanier
The most recent contender for the authorship of Shakespeare’s works, put forward by John Hudson in the latest issue of The Oxfordian (November 2009), is minus the traditional beard. Amelia Bassano (also known as Emilia Lanier) was the daughter of Venetian Jew, a musician who was brought to England by Henry VIII. Her Mediterranean skin makes her the favourite for the Dark Lady in Shakespeare’s sonnets, and Hudson is now contending that she didn’t just figure in them–she wrote them! Giving some credibility to this notion is that fact that Bassano wrote Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, the first published book of poetry by an Englishwoman. Educated by the duchess of Suffolk in the classics and the Bible, she was much more likely than William Shakespeare to have had the knowledge exhibited in his plays, particularly the 2,000 references to music. Still in the running for the authorship of the plays are Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, Edward de Vere, and William Stanley.