James Plaisted Wilde, 1st Baron Penzance (July 12, 1816 - December 9, 1899) was a British judge and amateur gardener who was a vociferous proponent of the theory that the works usually attributed to William Shakespeare were in fact authored by Francis Bacon. The son of a lawyer, he was the nephew of Lord Chancellor Thomas Wilde, 1st Baron Truro. He became a successful lawyer himself and received a knighthood in 1860. In the same year he married Lady Mary Bouverie (1825-1900), daughter of William Pleydell-Bouverie, 3rd Earl of Radnor. The couple resided at Eashing Park, Godalming. He presided over the Court of Probate and Divorce from 1863 until his retirement in 1872, being created a peer in 1869. However, in 1875 he accepted the post as Dean of Arches and presided over a number of notorious trials, notably, Bell Cox, Dale, Enraght, Green and Tooth, under the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874 arising out of the Ritualist controversy in the Church of England. At his garden in Godalming, from rosa eglanteria and rosa foetida he produced two new roses named Lady and Lord Penzance. He went on to produce a further 14 roses named for characters in the novels of Sir Walter Scott. He argued that the works of Shakespeare are invariably accurate in matters of law and must, therefore, be the work of a scholar such as Bacon. Lord Penzance inspired others to examine the legal expertise used in Shakespeare, chiefly Sir George Greenwood M.P., who wrote "The Shakespeare Problem Revisited". The leading candidate for Shakespeare is now Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, who attended GRAY'S INN. Penzance seems to have been astute, and ahead of his time in regards to focusing on the mystery of who wrote the sophisticated, aristocratic, and legally knowledgable works in the Shakespeare Canon.
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| Preceded by New Creation |
Baron Penzance | Succeeded by Extinct |
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| Theories | Oxfordian theory · Baconian theory · Marlovian theory Chronology of Shakespeare's plays – Oxfordian |
| Candidates | Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford · Francis Bacon · Christopher Marlowe · William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby · Edward Dyer · Henry Neville · Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland · Mary Sidney |
| Theorists and supporters | J. Thomas Looney · Charlton Ogburn · Irvin Leigh Matus · James Wilmot · Calvin Hoffman · James Wilde, 1st Baron Penzance · George Greenwood · Mark Twain |
Bibliography
- Wilde, J.P. (1902) Lord Penzance on the Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy - A Judicial Summing-Up
- Wilde, J.P. (ed.) M.H. Kinnear (1992) Lord Penzance's Trial of Shakespeare: Verdict for Bacon ISBN 1-85571-308-X
External links
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