The Master of the Ceremonies: The hand of Shakespeare - Softcover

William Corbett presents startling new evidence in the authorship debate by tracing the career of Lewes Lewkenor, Master of the Ceremonies to James I, uncovering a Catholic message encoded within the pages of Shakespeare's plays, begging the question, was Lewkenor the author hiding behind William Shakespeare? Lewes Lewkenor was a renegade soldier who had spent a decade fighting for the Catholic Philip II of Spain. But Lewkenor was welcomed back to court by Burghley and soon began working as Elizabeth I’s translator and receiver of foreign ambassadors. King James I created the position of Master of the Ceremonies for Lewkenor, placing him front-row at the recorded debut performances of many of the plays in the company of the very people they were written to please. We will examine how his contemporaries sniped at a clandestine writer who hid behind an actor, unraveling the sly allusions they made to a man they called ‘Luck-Less’. The Master of the Ceremonies covertly led the propaganda war at the heart of the Counter Reformation, speaking directly to his Catholic audience by inserting coded messages in the plays which he published using William Shakespeare as his amanuensis, his mask. Lewes Lewkenor urged that his name should be kept from his work, unknown for four hundred years. Finally we have found the author that the world and the works deserve. This is a remarkable tale of deceit and intrigue at the highest level.

William Corbett is a Historian from London. His new book delves into the authorship of the plays attributed to William Shakespeare by tracing the career of Lewes Lewkenor, Master of the Ceremonies. Corbett uncovers a hidden Catholic message encoded within the pages of Shakespeare's plays, begging the question, was Lewkenor the author hiding behind William Shakespeare?