-80-
45) Then Theobald
found that Gilbert Wats’ name (with only one “t”) in the Kay cipher
added up to 259, numerically equivalent to “Shakespeare”. Now I’m not
endorsing the whole of Theobald’s work as I haven’t read it. And the Friedmans
may well have been logical in at least nearly all of their criticism of
Theobald. I don’t know. But I do find it very interesting that his name was
spelt with just one “t” and that led it to have the Shakespeare Kay value of
259.
G I L B E R T W A T S
33 + 35 + 11
+ 28 + 31 + 17 + 19 + 21 + 27 + 19 + 18 = 259 = Shakespeare
Another early
Baconian, William Francis Wigston, writing in 1890 some 40 years before
Theobald, also became suspicious of this Gilbert Wats, but for entirely
different reasons. He recognized Bacon’s “style, phraseology, and peculiarities
of language” throughout the book and in his analysis of the “true” Bacon works
mentioned by Bacon’s secretary William Rawley, who listed Bacon’s authentic
works in a list at the end of his Resuscitatio, and which included this
“Interpretation” by “Gilbert Wats” he concluded that it had to have been the
original English version written by Bacon himself. This analysis can be read,
beginning on page 111, of Wigston’s book Hermes Stella: or Notes and
jottings upon the Bacon cipher. One caveat in all this is that Rawley
listed the Interpreter’s name as Gilbert Watts, with two “t”s. One possible
explanation for this is that Rawley had said he, at least partly, based his
listing of Bacon’s authentic works on his recognition of Bacon’s clear style of
writing, which elsewhere he had said could be recognized even if Bacon’s name
was not on it. So he may not have given close attention to noting that the
“Wats” in the preface had only one “t”.
If Bacon did
write this 1640 version of the Advancement
himself, and no Gilbert Wats had anything to do with it, then the many
allusions in it, not all of which I’ve covered, to Shakespeare and the First
Folio make additional sense. They can then be seen as hints or possible clues
to Bacon’s authorship. To strike them all down as coincidences doesn’t seem
plausible. The Friedmans did not try to demonstrate that they can be explained
by randomness. They seem to have been far more concerned with the lack of
definitely established rules for decipherment, rules to which Bacon’s allusions
and word/number puzzles may not be easily applied.
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