"To Colour Their Faces with Such Sibbersauces"

"During her reign, Elizabeth became an icon to worship—the Protestant object of a 'royal cult' that, Montrose reports, clashed with and contested the Catholic worship of the Virgin Mary. This 'cult of Elizabeth,' which emphasized her virginity and beauty, provoked a range of responses among Britons, who 'sustained, elaborated, and appropriated [the cult] to their own ends' during her time in power. Living inside it all, Elizabeth clearly seemed to realize her presentation of a mask that didn't slip was critical to her survival.

Rebecca Onion at Slate discusses the importance of makeup to Elizabeth I.

"It Had Patches on It Like a Hand-Me-Down"

"White made the map and other drawings when he travelled to Roanoke Island in 1585 on an expedition commanded by Sir Ralph Lane. In 1587, a second colony of 116 English settlers landed on Roanoke Island, led by White. He left the island for England for more supplies but couldn't return again until 1590 because of the war between England and Spain.
"When he came back, the colony was gone. White knew the majority had planned to move '50 miles into the marine,' as he wrote, referring to the mainland. The only clue he found about the fate of the other two dozen was the word 'CROATOAN' carved into a post, leading historians to believe they moved south to live with American Indians on what's now Hatteras Island."

The Telegraph reports on an old map that may provide a clue to the fate of the Lost Colony of Roanoke.

Looney's Tune

"'Anonymous' offers an ingenious way to circumvent such objections: there must have been a conspiracy to suppress the truth of de Vere’s authorship; the very absence of surviving evidence proves the case. In dramatizing this conspiracy, Mr. Emmerich has made a film for our time, in which claims based on conviction are as valid as those based on hard evidence. Indeed, Mr. Emmerich has treated fact-based arguments and the authorities who make them with suspicion."

James Shapiro in The New York Times criticizes the new movie Anonymous.

Full of Sound and Fury

"A quarter-century ago all this was unimaginable. In fact, Stevens, along with fellow Justices Harry Blackmun and William Brennan, ruled unanimously in favor of Shakespeare and against the Earl of Oxford in a celebrated moot court in 1987. The objection to Oxford's authorship was obvious: Because he died in 1604, he could not have written, sometimes in active collaboration with other dramatists, 10 or so plays after that (including 'Henry VIII,' described by contemporaries as 'new' when staged in 1613).
"What then accounts for the reversal? The facts haven't changed; what has is our comfort level with conspiracy theory as well as our eagerness to seek authors' lives in their works."

In the Los Angeles Times, James Shapiro wades into debates over William Shakespeare's authorship.

Jeremy McCarter in The New York Times reviews three new books, including Shapiro's, about Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's Skeptics

"'Death doesn't stop these people,' says Leggatt. Oxford, it's been said, could have written the works then popped them into a bottom drawer for post-mortem publication. "And Marlow didn't die either,' Leggatt laughs.
"That would be Christopher Marlowe, the Elizabethan dramatist (Tamburlaine, Doctor Faustus) who was killed in a pub brawl in 1593, but whose backers insist survived and fled to Italy. There, he continued to write under the Shakespeare pen name, a theory that explains why 14 of the Bard's plays are set in Italy and replete with intimate knowledge of the culture (if not the geography, mistakes on which are numerous)."

Lynda Hurst in The Star (Toronto) reports on the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition's "Declaration of Reasonable Doubt," casting doubts upon the Bard's authorship. (And includes a transcript of Monty Python's "Stake Your Claim" sketch.)