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| “ | Edward: An actor, for God's sake! Ben: My lord, l thought that-- Edward: You presume to think on my behalf? Ben: My lord, your voice is completely different from mine. Edward: Voice?! You have no voice! That's why I chose you! |
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| ~ Edward's most famous quote during a argument with his assistant and apprentice Ben. |
Edward de Vere is the main protagonist of the 2011 conspiring period drama film Anonymous. He is based on the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship that he wrote the plays and poems attributed to William Shakespeare.
As a adult, he was portrayed by Rhys Ifans, who also played Eyeball Paul in Kevin & Perry Go Large, Adrian in Little Nicky, Jed Parry in Enduring Love, Vladis Grutas in Hannibal Rising, Uncle Phil in Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, The Lizard in The Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man: No Way Home, Grigori Rasputin in The King's Man and Otto Hightower in House of the Dragon. As a teenager, he was portrayed by Jamie Campbell Bower, who also played Caius in Twilight, Gellert Grindelwald in the Harry Potter film series and Vecna in Stranger Things. As a child, he was portrayed by Luke Thomas Taylor.
Biography[]
The film traces the life of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, whom some experts consider the true author of works published under the name of William Shakespeare. In the film, Essex and Oxford are represented by the illegitimate sons of Queen Elizabeth, who also gave birth to de Vere the Earl of Southampton, the addressee of Shakespeare's sonnets. De Vere is portrayed as a great genius who wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream at the age of eight. He is forced to live in the Puritan house of William Cecil, where years later he kills a spy-servant hiding behind a tapestry, just like Polonia in Hamlet. William Cecil uses this murder to blackmail de Vere: to force the poet to marry without love and to abandon literature. De Vere enters into a struggle against the Queen's adviser William Cecil, who is convinced that theaters are sinful, and poems and plays are the intrigues of the devil. Cecil's plan to make James I, the son of Mary Stuart, king, is threatened by the presence of de Vere and the Queen's illegitimate son, who could become an alternative claimant to the throne through the Tudors.
Believing that "all art is political... otherwise it's just decoration", de Vere decides to use his secretly written works to promote the Earl of Essex against the cecil candidate. He writes "Henry V" and later "Richard III" as propaganda to foment the revolution, and then makes contact with Ben Johnson, who was recently imprisoned in the Tower on charges of calling for rebellion. De Vere uses his influence to free him and stage his play Henry V, played by Johnson. According to the film, Shakespeare turns out to be a bully-lyceum, under whose name Oxford publishes his plays after Ben Jonson refused this role. Unscrupulous young actor William Shakespeare, having discovered the identity of the real author, extorts money from de Vere to build the Globe Theater. Shakespeare's secret is revealed by playwright Christopher Marlowe – and he has to pay for it with his life. De Vere uses the play Richard III to subtly depict a veiled attack on Robert Cecil. This instigates the crowd to march on Cecil, which, according to a secret plan, should shake his position at court and weaken Cecil's attempts in promoting Scottish James as Elizabeth's heir. At the same time, Essex must go along with the Earl of Southampton and the crowd to the palace to advance its own claims to continuity. The plan fails: envious Johnson gives a conspiracy plan to Cecil, who blocks the crowd and stops them before joining Essex. The Queen, under the influence of Cecil, believes that Essex is trying to displace her by force, easily capturing both Essex and Southampton. Both face execution.
Robert Cecil reveals secrets to the broken de Vere: Elizabeth had many illegitimate sons, one of whom was de Vere himself. This means that de Vere committed unintentional incest with his mother, and his son later became Earl of Southampton. In order to save his son from beheading, de Vere begs the Queen and agrees to remain an anonymous author of Shakespeare's works. After the queen's death, Cecil's plan for Jacob is realized, although hopes for a more Puritan regime are dashed. Once in London, Jacob expresses the hope of seeing even more of Shakespeare's works. Shakespeare himself walks away from his ill-gotten gains to Stratford to become a businessman, and de Vere dies in 1604. However, Cecil still wants to destroy the manuscripts of William Shakespeare and sets fire to the Globe Theater. Cecil felt that the manuscripts had turned to ashes along with the theater. However, this does not prevent Johnson from later discovering them safely. But the truth that their real author was Edward de Vere, and not an illiterate actor from Stratford, remains hidden.
Trivia[]
- Sir Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance (both who starred in the film) are supporters of the Oxfordian theory (on which this movie's plot is based) in real life.
- When a reporter on National Public Radio pointed out to screenwriter John Orloff that this movie is full of historical inaccuracies (for instance, the playwright Christopher Marlowe, who appears as a character in this movie, actually was dead by the time these events supposedly "took place"), he responded that he wrote these inaccuracies into the screenplay deliberately as an homage to the way that Shakespeare himself took dramatic liberties in his history plays.