Stratfordians have nowhere to squat

Alexander Waugh, presented two papers at the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship 2014 conference in Madison, WI; Photo Linda Theil

by Linda Theil

Ron Halsted, Richard Joyrich and I attended the 2014 Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship conference in Madison, WI Sept 11-14. Alexander Waugh flew in from England to present two papers: one on the bogus nature of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust site, and the second on Ben Jonson's "Sweet Swan of Avon" reference in the First Folio that appears to place the author of Shakespeare's works on the banks of Stratford on Avon.

Waugh's essay on the topic of Shakespeare's birthplace appears in his just-published Kindle Single ebook titled, Shakespeare in Court, and is available from Amazon for $1.99 at http://amazon.com/Shakespeare-Court-Kindle-Single-Alexander-ebook/dp/B00NFFP3OU. A Kindle reader is available at no cost from the site. Preview available here.

Waugh's essay on Jonson's "swan of avon" is published in the latest editon of the SOF journal, The Oxfordian, that is available to SOF members -- information at http://www.shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/the-oxfordian/.

Waugh says in The Oxfordian, Vol. 16 (2014) p. 100: 

So it would appear that Hampton Court was anciently known as “Avon”. Camden’s source was Leland’s Genethliacon of 1643, but this was by no means his only reference to the Royal palace as “Avon”. In his Cygnea Cantio (1545) Leland explained that Hampton Court was called “Avon” as a shortening of the Celtic-Roman name “avondumun” meaning a fortified place (dunum) by a river (avon), which “the common people by corruption called Hampton.” This etymology was supported by Raphael Hollinshed, who wrote in this Chronicles (1586) that “we now pronounce Hamton for Avondune.
 Edward de Vere’s tutor, the antiquarian Laurence Nowell, also knew of this connection because he transcribed, by hand, the complete “Syllabus” from Leland’s Genethliacon, which contains the  entry: “Avondunum, Aglice Hamtoncourte.” Historian William Lambarde, in his Topgraphical and Historical Dictionary of England, written in the 16902, includes an entry for Hampton Court, which, he writes, is “corruptly called Hampton for Avondun or Avon, and usual Names for many Waters within Ingland.”

So, one of the three shaky legs (i.e. title pages attributing work to Shakespeare, the Stratford monument, and Jonson's reference to the swan of Avon in the First Folio) of the Stratfordian attribution is sawn off by a British iconoclast who revels in challenging the status quo.

Since the title pages are meaningless, the monument is fraudulent, and now the First Folio leads to the site where Shakespeare's plays were originally offered to the court, the Stratfordian stool is legless.