Let Shakspere Die: Long Live the Merry Madcap Lord Roger Manner, 5th Earl of Rutland the Real "Shakespeare"

Rutland (1576-1612), in the sonnets, writes covertly and bravely about his sexual impotency. No scholar has ever been able to provide evidence that substantiates any of the sonnets. I have explained many of them. Rutland was King James's ambassador to King Christian IV of Denmark and stayed in the royal castle at Elsinor, the setting for Hamlet. He married Elizabeth Sidney - she, fifteen, he twenty-three - but the marriage was never consummated. He writes two very poignant poems to her - Sonnets 139 and 140. She is the prototype of many of his dramatic heroines - Viola, Beatrice, Rosalind, Portia, Cordelia, et al.