THE ADVOCATE 303
VOL. 79 PART 2 MARCH 2021
identified certain “gnawing uncertainty” and “gnawing doubts” sparked by
such matters as the absence of eulogies upon Shakespeare’s death, and evidence
tending to point to the plays’ author being a member of the nobility,
which Shakespeare was not. Justice Stevens was persuaded that if the
author was not Shakespeare, there was a high probability it was Oxford, who
had “by far the strongest” claim. He concluded by noting that while the
judges had done their best, the doctrine of res judicata did not apply so as to
prevent a future decision in Oxford’s favour.
Justice Blackmun seemed24 as a matter of law to agree that Oxford’s case
had not been proven but expressed reservations about judging the matter
(or using the judicial process for it), and in this regard cited Isabella in Measure
for Measure, Act 2, Scene 2: “O, it is excellent / To have a giant’s strength;
but it is tyrannous / To use it like a giant.” He said he would much prefer to
leave the issue to historians and wished the court would have said it was a
political question that the judges need not and cannot decide—perhaps the
moral of the story that the Circuit Court’s Executive Committee had wished,
in its own way, to express in 1916.
ENDNOTES
1. The portion of this piece up to the heading “Shakespeare
v. Oxford” is based primarily on various
newspaper articles found in The New York Times’
TimesMachine, online: <timesmachine.nytimes.
com/>, namely “Rich Men in Court Over Shakespeare”,
The New York Times (10 March 1916) 7
“Rich Men in Court”; “Finds Shakespeare Was an
Impostor: Chicago Judge Rules That Bacon Was the
Author of the Bard’s Plays”, The New York Times (22
April 1916) 11 “Judge Rules”; “Defends Bacon
Decision: Chicago Jurist, Sharply Criticized, Insists
He Is Right” The New York Times (23 April 1916) 16
“Defends Bacon Decision”; “To Vacate Bacon Decision:
Chicago Court Takes Action After Collusion
Rumors in Suit”, The New York Times (2 May 1916)
13 “Collusion Rumours”; “Tuthill Rescinds Shakespeare
Edict: Sets Verdict for Bacon Aside and Sends
Chicago Litigation to Another Judge” The New York
Times (3 May 1916) 1 “Rescinds Shakespeare Verdict”;
“Dismisses Shakespeare Suit”, The New York
Times (22 July 1916) 16; “William N. Selig, Pioneer
in Films” The New York Times (17 July 1948) 15.
Various of these articles, together with additional
New York Times articles on authorship controversies,
are also quoted in William S Niederkorn, “Jumping
O’er Times: The Importance of Lawyers and Judges
in the Controversy over the Identity of Shakespeare,
as Reflected in the Pages of the New York Times”
(2004) 72:1 Tenn L Rev 67. Additional sources
include Francis Xavier Busch, In and Out of Court
(Chicago: DePaul University Press, 1943), which
contains a chapter on Judge Tuthill (Chapter 3: “The
Judge Who Was First a Soldier”); “Aha! Sherlock Is
Outdone!”, Chicago Tribune (22 April 1916) “Sherlock
Is Outdone”; Edward Huycke, “Francis Bacon”
(1926) 4:9 Can Bar Rev 625; William F Friedman &
Elizebeth S Friedman, The Shakespeare Ciphers
Examined: An Analysis of Cryptographic Systems
Used as Evidence That Some Author Other Than
William Shakespeare Wrote the Plays Commonly
Attributed to Him (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1957); Richard Bentley, “Elizabethan
Whodunit: Who Was ‘William Shake-Speare’?”
(1959) 45:2 ABA Journal 143; David Kruh & Louis
Kruh, “The Trial of William Shakespeare”, online:
<studylib.net/doc/7446514/the-trial-of-williamshakespeare>;
and “George Fabyan”, Wikipedia,
online: <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Fabyan>.
2. Indeed, at least one play may have been written
about the events set out here. See David Kruh, The
Riverbank Code (Eldridge Publishing Company,
2003), excerpted online: <www.epc-library.com/
freeview/F_8272.pdf>.
3. Irwin L Goldman, “William Friedman, Geneticist
Turned Cryptographer” (2017) 206:1 Genetics 1,
citing WR Clark, The Man Who Broke Purple: The
Life of the World’s Greatest Cryptologist Colonel
William F. Friedman (London: Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1977).
4. “Rich Men in Court”, supra note 1.
5. Online: <riverbanklabs.com/about>.
6. Indeed, apparently so did Riverbank Laboratories
more generally. A plaque at Riverbank states: “To the
Memory of George Fabyan From a Grateful Government:
In recognition of the voluntary and confidential
service rendered by Colonel Fabyan and his River-
/the-trial-of-william-shakespeare
/F_8272.pdf
/www.timesmachine.nytimes.com
/F_8272.pdf
/George_Fabyan
/about
