Thomas Seymour in King Lear
This is a simple, and I hope easy to explain, solution to puzzles on two pages of King Lear (pages 283 and 300 of the Tragedies). I used "the compass method" to solve these puzzles. Specifically, I used a standard circle with a radius of 26 lines, which I call the "marke upon him...two courses off" circle. You can find and explanation of how I discovered the circle in this post:
https://www.hiddenmessagesinshakespeare.com/post/post-1-part-1-the-king-of-the-sea-messages
The images below have explanations in the margins, so they should be self-explanatory. The images reveal the name of Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley. Thomas Seymour is believed by some, including myself, of having been the true father of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Queen Elizabeth I is believed by some, including myself, to have been his mother.
Here are the images--
The blinding of Gloucester is a significant and dramatic scene in King Lear. After Gloucester is blinded, he must rely on his other senses to navigate the world. This is emphasized when Regan coldly remarks when Gloucester is thrown into the world as a blind man, "let him smell / His way to Dover." Ironically, it is only after his blinding that Gloucester can truely "see" his son Edgar's loyalty and love.
On the first page of the play, the blinding of Gloucester is foreshadowed in the first lines of Lear's eldest daughter Gonerill: "I love you more than word can weild the matter / Deerer than eye-sight..." Regan's heartless comment -- "let him smell / His way to Dover" -- is also alluded to in when Gloucester comments about Edmond's illegitimate birth, "Do you smell a fault?". These refences to eye-sight and the sense of smell point to scene (Act 3, scene 7; page 300 of the Tragedies) in the play where Gloucester is blinded by Regan's husband Cornwall.
It seems irrefutable that the messages revealed by the circles in the images above were hidden in the text of King Lear by design. The clues to finding the messages are hidden in Gloucester's remarks about the bastard Edmond. The name revealed on page 300 is that of Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, Lord High Admiral. Thomas Seymour engaged in inappropriate behavior with then Lady Elizabeth Tutor (later Queen Elizabeth I). Some believe, myself included, that an illegitimate child (i.e., a natural child) -- Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford-- was born as a result of an affair between Thomas and Elizabeth.
Both page 283 and 300 also contain veiled references to Edward de Vere. The questions posed by Gloucester on page 283 both begin with the words "Do you... ." The words "Do you" sound like "deux [two] U." At the time, the letter U was represented by both the letter U and V, so "deux U" is the same as "deux V." In the Elizabethan alphabet, the letter V was the 20th letter, so a double V was equivalent to the number forty (40). Edward de Vere sometimes signed his letters as "Double V," and Alexander Waugh has posited that Edward de Vere's code number was forty. The name bastard son Edmond is also very close to the name Edward, as is Edgar, the name of Gloucester's legitimate son. The association of the names Edward and Edmond point to Edward de Vere's illegitimacy as a Tudor. Similarly, the association of the names Edward and Edgar point to Edward de Vere's legitimacy as a de Vere. In addition, the mention of the port of Dover on page 300 again alludes to the de Vere name (Do-Ver).
All the allusions and veiled references in the hidden messages shown above point to Edward de Vere having been the illegitimate son of Elizabeth Tudor and Thomas Seymour.
The following image shows some interesting Tudor and Seymour letter alignments on page 283:
