After all, there really is very little in Shakespeare’s plays that required knowledge beyond materials that were publicly available. What the authorship partisans have failed to demonstrate is how any of their candidates had the intimate knowledge and experience of theater and drama to create plays that remain the standard by which all other stage works are measured. Those qualifications are possessed uniquely by the man who was an active member of an extraordinary theatrical ensemble–William Shakespeare, gentleman of Stratford.
Anti-Stratfordians must rely solely upon speculation about what they think the “real” author should have been like, because they cannot produce one historical fact to bolster their refusal to accept who that author actually was. No matter how they try to ignore it or explain it away, the historical record — all of it — establishes William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon as the author of the works traditionally attributed to him.
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