Hilarious!
It all sounds pretty airy-fairy.
DSH
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
"Leo van de Pas" <leovdpas@netspeed.com.au> wrote in message
news:mailman.2616.1201335815.4586.gen-medieval@rootsweb.com...
It is a pity that the Family History Monthly did not say they were
revisiting an old story.
In the article and the websites you gave, they show me how lax some people
are. Penelope married a Spencer, ah Lady Diana is a descendant and so is
Prince William. But HM the Queen herself is a descendant of this Penelope.
In the ancestor list of the Queen she is nr.3701.
With best wishes
Leo van de Pas
"Leo van de Pas" <leovdpas@netspeed.com.au> wrote in message
news:mailman.2606.1201327027.4586.gen-medieval@rootsweb.com...
There are people who doubt William Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to
him, now there is someone who does want to attribute something to him and if
proven (I doubt in will or can) could have interesting implications.
Only today did I pick up the Christmas issue 2007 of Family History Monthly.
On page 12 is a story about the research of Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel.
She lectures in English Literature at the University of Mainz in Germany.
I will let her speak for herself, but I am going to change one word, she
says she produced evidence, and I think it is only a suggestion.
"For centuries there has been doubt about the identity of Shakespeare's
'Dark Lady', who he wrote a number of sonnets about. I believe she was
Elizabeth Vernon, who in 1598 married the Earl of Southampton, when she was
already highly pregnant. I was able to produce suggestions that it was
William Shakespeare, not the 3rd Earl of Southampton, who fathered Vernon's
first-born daughter Penelope."
"One of my main sources was the painting "The Persian Lady" by Marcus
Gheeraerts the Younger., created in the 1590s when Shakespeare's sonnets
were written. Until now its subject has never been convincingly identified.
I believe her to be the Countess of Southampton. The paintings contains an
anonymous sonnet, which may have been authorised by Shakespeare. This turned
out to be the missing final poem of the Dark Lady cycle., in which the
turbulent three-way relationship between the poet, his mistress and his
noble friend is described. The 'friend' was the third Earl of Southampton."
(Don't forget she lives in Germany) "With an expert from the German Federal
Bureau of Criminal Investigation, I compared the Persian Lady's facial
features with those in a portrait of the Countess of Southampton dating from
about 1600. They proved to be in striking agreement. A comparison between a
portrait of Penelope and those of her alleged father, the Earl of
Southampton, showed no resemblance at all. A compaqrison between Penelope
and an image of Shakespeare, however, revealed a striking resemblance."
"Additional evidence for the relationship between Elizabeth and Shakespeare
comes from an overlooked clue in the portrait of the Countess of
Southampton: the face of a man on her sleeve. This does not have the
features of her husband. However, it does bear an amazing resemblance to
William Shakespeare."
"My investigations into the identity of Shakespeare's Dark Lady took roughly
three years. Once the identity of the poet's beloved was established and the
question of who had fathered her first-born child settled, it was easy to
find out that a direct bloodline existed through to the present day, passing
through the Spencer family."
------------------------------------
Does anyone know those sonnets? Are they about a triangle in which the young
nobleman marries the poets pregnant mistress?
Interesting and fascinating.
Through "the Spencer family" quite a few interesting and important people
are descended from this Penelope and so (possibly) from William Shakespeare.
Author Lady Antonia Fraser, the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Albemarle,
Sarah Ferguson, the Prince von Thurn und Taxis,
the Duke of Buccleuch, the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Abercorn, the
Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, the Earl of Lichfield, HM the Queen, the
Duke of Roxburghe, the Duke of Marlborough, Rachel Ward, the Prince zu
Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, the Prince zu Bentheim-Tecklenburg, the Prince
zu Furstenberg, the Duke of Westminster, the Marquess of Salisbury, the Duke
of Leinster, Davina Sheffield, the Duke of Bedford, and by the way also Lady
Diana Spencer.
I have made a file with 6,974 descendants (plus spouses plus in-laws) of
this Penelope, if anyone is interested, I gladly pass it on.
With best wishes
Leo van de Pas
Canberra, Australia