Customer Reviews

Oxford: Son of Queen Elizabeth I

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I purchased this book after seeing the author interviewed on television and reading the reviews. I cannot understand the number of 5-star reviews this book was given. The only plausible explanation is that they were all written by Mr. Streitz himself. Whether or not Oxford was the son of Elizabeth I is irrelevant. This is one of the most poorly researched and poorly written books I have ever tried to read. I finally gave up after the third time he told of event that probably happened, but for which there is no proof yet, stating that sometime in the future "someone" should do the research. No, Mr. Streitz, that someone should have been you, and the time to do the research is before you write the book.

Bottom line - unreadable drivel.

Is this book preposterous? Maybe. Yet those the book concerns lived in preposterous times. Times when a monarch ended an adulterous marriage with the axe, or burned hundreds at the stake for professing a different religion. Or when one could be fined or pilloried for wearing clothes considered above his or her social status.

Men and women then, as now, felt strong hormonal impulses that often led to adulterous relationships. Anne Boleyn supposedly. Catherine Howard decidedly.

Some women were married in their early or mid teens;and some were of the nobility. Prince Arthur Tudor was 15 when he married Catherine of Aragon, 16. Catherine Willoughby was 13 when she married her guardian, 48-year-old Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. They had two sons.

So it's not so difficult to imagine that 14-year-old Elizabeth Tudor's virginity could have been compromised by her amorous 40-year-old "step-father" who had proposed marriage when she was 13. And that she was sent to the country to quietly give birth. And that her child was given over to be raised as the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere. Perhaps it reads like cheap fiction, but it's within the likelihood and lives of the nobility of that day.

At least some Oxfordians have the problem, however, of reconciling this with what is known as the "Tudor Rose" theory, which asserts that the 3rd Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, fair youth of the sonnets, was the son of Elizabeth and Edward de Vere,Elizabeth's son. Season this further with the fact that Southampton was urged by William Cecil, Lord Burghley, to marry Elizabeth Vere, daughter of his son-in-law Edward de Vere and his wife Anne (Cecil) Vere. All of this reminds one of the 1950s tune "I'm My Own Grandpa."

But what Mr. Streitz needs to pay attention to in any future editions is editing. There are some egregious errors (EEs), especially for someone with a master's degree from the University of Chicago, albeit an MBA.

EE-1: Prince Arthur is said to have been married to Catherine of Aragon for two years before he died. If that were the case the Pope would never have allowed Catherine to marry Henry. In fact the marriage of Arthur and Catherine lasted less than five months, during which time it was claimed that Arthur was too feeble to perform. Thus, on the grounds the marriage had not been consummated, the Pope granted dispensation and Catherine was allowed to marry Henry.

EE-2: The sentence, "The ability to emphasize (sic) with another's feelings, emotions, or pain was a quite underveloped quantity in the Elizabethan personality."

EE-3: The phrase, "professors of Greek and Roman." Would not Greek and Latin be better?

EE-4: In referring to an act listed in the Statutes of the Realm, there is the sentence: "It may have been passed in April... or it could have been past (sic) later."

EE-5: And then there's the phrase "heir to the thrown," which is not meant to be a pun.

Hopefully in the next edition, should there be one, Mr. Streitz and editors will take a closer look at the proofs. When dealing with a topic that strains credulity, as this does, great care should be taken not to create unneeded and avoidable distractions that cast greater doubt on the author's credentials.

This is a book that will appeal to deranged fantasists everywhere, and provide a good many laughs to the more rational. The fact that its bizarre claims are supported by a complete absence of evidence of any kind will only add to its charm and appeal for those who wear tinfoil helmets to prevent aliens from messing with their brainwaves -- after all, the best evidence of an effective government conspiracy and cover-up is precisely the absence of such evidence.

Rife with factual errors, this self-published attempt at scholarship is worse than embarrassing; it is unintentionally hilarious: Queen Elizabeth, Mr. Streitz claims, was both mother and lover to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. He offers nothing at all in the way of evidence for this assertion, nor does he offer any evidence for any of the other silly claims he spouts in this silly book. Furthermore, he cannot write, he can neither spell nor punctuate correctly, and his syntax is ungrammatical. Shelve it under 'Humor.'

According to this book, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, is not only the author of Shakespeare's plays, but much of the rest of the Tudor canon. He, not Golding, translated Ovid. He wrote Euphues. He wrote The Spanish Tragedy. You name it. But that's just the literary part. It turns out he is not only the son of a 13 year old Princess Elizabeth but also the parent (with his mother, the Virgin Queen) of the Earl of Southampton, the young man of the sonnets.

You might think this is Oxfordianism run amok. You might be right. Moreover, the book suffers from many of the usual defects of the Oxfordian cause. The author is an amateur. His professional credits listed on the dust jacket include service in the 82nd Airborne in Vietnam, an MBA from the University of Chicago, and co-authorship of the musicals "Oh, Johnny" and "Madison Avenue, the subliminal musical". And the book is self-published and suffers from numerous typos and mis-usages, especially in the first part, where credibility is won or lost.

However...the book offers many plausible arguments and some hard data as well as speculation. If you have any interest in the Authorship Question, you should read this book. (If you don't have any interest, you should take an interest; final confirmation and general acknowledgement of Oxford as Shakespeare would illuminate and transform both Tudor history and literature.) Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Henry James and many others long ago pointed out the implausibility of the Will of Stratford story that continues to be taught in school. Searching for the true author, the unfortunately named J. Thomas Looney fitted the glass slipper to de Vere during the First World War. And the professoriat has been trying to ignore it ever since. I suppose they fear looking foolish, and anyway the deconstructionists of the last 40 years have made clear that authorship is of no importance.

One academic, Roger Stritmatter, has recently given attention to the Earl's Geneva Bible in the Folger Library, where marginalia in the Earl's handwriting correlate very strongly with bibilical references in Shakespeare. The greatest need is to find more professors of English renaissance literature and Tudor history willing to break ranks and finally give attention to the mounting evidence in favor of Oxford as the author; they have relied on professorial hauteur long enough.

In the meantime, amateurs should carefully proofread their texts.

The fact that someone could even fathom the ideas in this book is disturbing. As a huge fan of Katherine Parr, I am rather insulted that this author would even suggest that Seymour got Elizabeth pregnant. This whole theory is rather ridiculous and is another product of Victorian scholars. I am rather disgusted with this book and the fact that it is being used as a source for people to further the idea that Elizabeth had all these affairs and pregnancies, when history clearly says otherwise, it's disturbing. It's almost as bad as believing "The Other Boleyn Girl" and the fact that Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth's mother, actually had a tryst with her own brother! Honestly, if Elizabeth had become pregnant by Seymour, Seymour would have been executed on the spot by either the Dowager Queen or the Regency council and Elizabeth would have been imprisoned! Unbelievable!

"Oxford, Son of Queen Elizabeth" by Paul Streitz (published by Oxford Institute Press, 2001) is an extraordinary and provocative book. It is likely to be considered totally unacceptable to "Stratfordian" Shakespearean scholars, who believe that plays and poems attributed to William Shakespeare can only be the work of the celebrated man of that name, born in Stratford-upon-Avon and christened "Gulielmus Shakspere" in 1564. By contrast, the book will be welcomed by "Oxfordians" who believe that the same plays and poetry should instead be attributed to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, born in 1548.

This authorship question has been growing for several decades. Streitz has now contributed to the debate by compiling historical evidence to suggest that Elizabeth I was the mother of the Bard, that the biological father was Thomas Seymour, and that the 16th Earl of Oxford (John de Vere) was his foster-father. These suggestions may be considered preposterous by many critics, but Streitz obviously would not have dared to publish his book if he did not have some substance to advance them.

Consider the so-called "Virgin Queen". Streitz notes that "in over four hundred years, there have been no critical investigations of whether or not Elizabeth had children". Evidently there had been rumours circulating in 1549, when Elizabeth was just 15 years old. In a letter addressed to Edward Seymour, the Lord Protector, the princess herself referred to "shameful Schandlers" (slanders) that she was "with Child". In a second letter she appealed again to the Lord Protector, requesting that "no such rumours should be spread". Apparently she succeeded in this regard. Now, 450 years later, Streitz is the first person to link the "Schandlers" with events in the summer of 1548, when a child was born in suspiciously secret circumstances to a "very fair young lady" of about "fifteen or sixteen years of age". There is no proof that this young lady was princess Elizabeth, but Streitz considers this as a possibility in the context of events which he strings together to make a possible if not proven case. Notably, suspicions are associated with "the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the birth of the saide Edward, now Earle of Oxforde" (to quote from a late 16th century document)..

There is no doubt that the 17th Earl of Oxford was given opportunities to study in Cambridge (in 1564) and in Oxford (1566), and that he travelled to France and Italy (1575). Further, there is no doubt that Edward de Vere did write poetry, but not every modern scholar would accept that the de Vere poems correspond to the quality and style of those attributed to William Shakespeare. By contrast, Gabriel Harvey, a contemporary of the Earl, was absolutely flattering in 1578: "Thou has hast drunk deep draughts not only of the Muses of France and Italy...thine eyes flash fire, thy countenance shakes spears" (from Latin, 'tela vibrat', which can be alternatively translated as "brandishes spears"). Oxfordians venture to say that it is not coincidental that the name Shakespeare can itself be translated into Latin as 'tela vibrat'.

"Shakespeare's Sonnets", with a publication date of 1609 , have been interpreted in numerous ways. Streitz provides novel interpretations, suggesting not only that they include cryptic references to the 17th Earl of Oxford, but also that they were written by that dignitary whose dignity was diminished towards the end of his lifetime.

A poem with metaphorical references to bees is extraordinary. It includes references to henbane, hemlock and other substances, including tobacco. The line "wordes, hopes, witts, and the all the world [is] but smoke" leads to the statement "Twas not tobacco [that] stupifyed the brain". If the verse was indeed written by the Earl of Oxford, as Streitz suggests, perhaps at times he wrote under the influence of a substance more "bewitching" than tobacco: "from those [leaves] no dram of sweete I drayne, their head strong [fury] did my head bewitch"

"Oxford, Son of Queen Elizabeth" makes very interesting reading, even though one need not accept everything contained in it. There are intriguing facts, such as the Queen's grant of 1,000 pounds per annum to the 17th Earl of Oxford. That was an enormous sum of money in 1586. The obvious question is why? Was it really a gift from a benevolent mother to a playwright son? Streitz suggests that the anomalously large grant was intended to support actors and playwrights to prop up political power at a time when Elizabeth I had to be extremely careful against Catholic opposition at home, and the prospect of a Spanish invasion.

To assess the merits of the book, it is strongly recommended that it be read in its entirety. Even if one is willing to absorb and accept only parts of it, those parts may help to "flesh out" an understanding of relationships between Elizabeth I and the 17th Earl of Oxford, in the context of literary debate.

Reviewed by J.F. Thackeray, Transvaal Museum, Box 413, Pretoria 0001, South Africa

I certainly agree that this book suffers greatly from a too-evident lack of editing. Nevertheless, the premise is ultimately fascinating and stunning in its impact.

I've long been dismayed by the tendency of Stratfordians to jump to marginally warranted conclusions about the "facts" of Shakespeare's life. (Read any of the major biographies carefully, and you'll soon observe how very quickly phrases such as "it seems" and "it seems certain" transform smoothly into conclusions that then are spoken of as if proven facts.) Thus, to be fair, I must admit that Mr. Streitz develops a fascinating but similarly unproven thesis about Oxford's relationships with both Elizabeth I and Southampton. The difference, it seems to me, is that his theory provides a context that makes startling sense of the tone taken in several of Shakespeare's more puzzling sonnets.

Intrigued by Streitz's analysis of the significance of "Venus and Adonis," I left off his book and fetched my copy of the poem and read it straight through. Frankly, considering the poem's content in view of Mr. Streitz's suggested context was not only stunning but left me with chills for some time thereafter. His context renders the poem not merely darkly erotic but shatteringly so. Viewed relative to the whole of Streitz's theory, it is absolutely chilling.

An extremely intriguing book without a doubt. I'd suggest reading this in conjunction with Diana Price's SHAKESPEARE'S UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY. Both raise quite compelling doubts about the connection of the "Man from Stratford" with the works.

First of all, this book isn't worth fifty bucks. I spents all my birthday money on it, and I was disappointed.

Second of all, it's pretty obvious this guy doesn't like Elizabeth much. I don't know if it's anti-feminism, or what, but he makes some pretty rotten accusations against her. He seems to use Mary Queen of Scots as his main source that anything happened between Elizabeth and Oxford. In case no one noticed, Mary isn't a very good source. Mary and Elizabeth didn't like each other and they both loved to say nasty things about the other one. Philip II isn't a good source either. Using Mary and Philip as sources is like calling up Severus Snape and asking for a biography of Harry Potter. You aren't going to get very goood info. She was a decent woman, and a decent ruler, but Mr. Streitz seems bent on proving she wasn't.

Second of all, it's pretty obvious he didn't do his research. He can't seem to remember how old these people are at given times. He says Elizabeth was 13 when she had Oxford. Actually, she would've been 14 or 15 depending on whether or not she had him after her birthday. I'm just a kid, but even I know basic math. And he said Jane Grey was Mary Tudor's daughter, but she was her grandaughter. Anyone with a basic knowledge of Tudor history would know that right away.

Third of all, he does actually have something here. It seems to me that he found a bunch of wholes and history and decided to fill them up with one answer. I don't think Elizabeth had all those kids he talked about, I mean maybe she was pregnant after what her step-dad did to her, but I don't really see any proof it was Oxford. However, Oxford could of thought he was King of England. Not because of who his parents were, but just cause of his ego. Essex probably wasn't her kid (despite what the book says) but he seemed to think he was king. The only concrete evidence he had was the play in 1609: "To our ever-living poet" They tend not to say that about people who aren't dead. So maybe Oxford was Shakespeare, or atleast he wrote some stuff for him (I think it was more than one person). But I don't think he was the Queen's son, and I'm a little offended by his Elizabeth dissing and his elitist attitude "Shakespeare was poor and poor people can't write!".

In conclusion:
Don't buy it, borrow it if you get the chance.
Try another Oxfordian book for a better look at things.
Mr. Streitz should learn his dates. (hey that rhymed!)


- J.
[...]

Elizabethan history is much less popular than the Shakespeare plays, but the more one can learn about that history, the more one can see into the meaning of the plays, whether or not their authorship is in question. Streitz provides much relevant detail about the early lives of Elizabeth, Oxford, William Cecil, even Henry VIII; his theory of the Queen's parenthood of Oxford is strongly supported. Many problems in the plays are plausibly explained by reference to the lives of Oxford, Cecil, and the religious/political problems faced by the English during Elizabeth's reign. Obviously, this is a bigger story than one book can cover in complete detail. Streitz has made a very good start on re-telling what must be one of the biggest scandals in European literary history.