The Shakespeare Schemes

The Shakespeare Schemes is the tale of the schemes and dangerous political subterfuge that brought the plays of the great dramatist to the London stage. The narrative is firmly rooted in historical events and features many of the most prominent figures of the age. It tells how, in origin, the scripts were written by Edmund Campion, the Jesuit priest; how he came to England on a suicide mission, and how, just before his arrest and execution, he left his works in the safe hands of two Catholic sympathisers - Edward de Vere and William Stanley. As the political scene worsened in the late 1580s and early 1590s, Edward de Vere was determined to do the right thing by Campion and have the plays brought to the stage, simply because they were great plays and they deserved to be performed. But they were also dangerously seditious in tone, and could be seen as an open attack on Queen Elizabeth and her reign; they spoke of a divided nation that had lost its faith, lost its heart and lost its soul. Furthermore, Edward de Vere had his own darker personal reasons to publish these plays - reasons that are the sinister secret of this tale. And as Lord Great Chamberlain of England, he knew he must mask the truth of the play's publication from the eyes of the world - he chose the player from Stratford to front this great enterprise.