And when I send for you, come hither mask'd
Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

Other candidates are legion….

· Perennial favorites include Queen Elizabeth, the Earl of Rutland, the Earl of Southampton, the Earl of Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Edmund Campion (which would make Shakespeare, quite literally, a saint).

· Another popular theory attributes authorship to a group - though there is much disagreement as to who contributed, and who was in charge.

· Inexplicably lunatic are claims for Henry Howard, earl of Sussex (beheaded about forty-four years before the first known performance of a Shakespearean play) and Daniel Defoe (born about seventy years after that first performance.)

· A recent entry into the fray is Sir Henry Neville, a minor courtier and at one time Elizabeth's Ambassador to France.