Scholars have wondered for centuries how the country bumpkin got away with his often savage skewering of the nobility. Cast instead a member of that nobility, under Burley’s protection, and the question disappears.

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Since that is noted in the passage I quoted, I would certainly hope you “understand” it!

"In this work about Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, the competing theories—proposing Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, William Stanley, the Earl of Derby, and, of course, Shakespeare himself—are given their day in court as well."

Did you see it? This is why the defense of De Vere is such an uphill slog. The Stratfordians have already claimed their place on the top, and done so by an exercise so simple most people don't even notice it. They call their man "Shakespeare".

This is, of course, the common, preferred spelling of the byline on the plays, poems and sonnets, but it is not how it was first presented to the public, and, from the available records, it would seem to have not even been the way the Stratford Man commonly spelled his own name. In documents, including six signatures (one disputed) he mostly uses multiple variants on the pronunciation "Shaxsper". That was the common Warwickshire version of the time.

(How do we know how words were pronounced in Elizabethan times? Simple. The spelling of words and names had not yet been formalized, so scribes would spell them as they heard them, sometimes in more than one way on the same page. From the multiple iterations of the Stratford Man's name in various documents, we know how he preferred to pronounce it.)

It is significant, then, that the first time we find the name "Shakespeare" on the Works, it is not quite in the familiar form. It appears as "Shake-speare", which. I have noted before, while not an uncommon form of a hyphenated name, takes on new meaning when we consider that in Elizabethan theater the hyphen followed by a lowercase letter (as opposed to "Shake-Speare") was sometimes used to indicate a made-up name. Perhaps meaningless. Perhaps not.

Or so the Jonson-made legend has it.

Mind you, I’m sure it’s complete coincidence that the Myth of Shakespeare began serious construction after De Vere died—as I’m sure it’s just some kind of mix-up that the printer of the First Folio refers to the Author as if he’s dead, even tho the Stratford Man still had years to live.

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It was disgraceful for a Peer of the Realm to have works performed in a public theater. De Vere wrote for his peers, and toured his acting company around many country homes of the Lords and Ladies of the Court.

As to Mere, since De Vere was acknowledged in his lifetime as an excellent poet and “the best for comedy”, he could hardly be left out. And including Shakespeare? Would YOU have wanted to out Lord Burley’s son-in-law?

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If it is the case that De Vere did adopt a pseudonym, why take such an unusual one? Why not "John Smith", or somesuch? What are the odds that there would be another William Shakespeare, or Shakspere, also writing at the same time? What are the odds that Shakspere would have a son called Hamnet?

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Lot of assumptions there, starting with the notion that the Stratford Man was “writing at the same time”. The only “evidence” we have for him being an author comes by assuming he wrote the Works, but nothing in the actual record of his life supports this assumption.

As to De Vere taking the name, it may not have been his choice. As his plays and other works leaked out into the hands of the Public, an author was needed as a recognizable “brand”. Perhaps the Stratford Man was elected as a front. Or perhaps the name sprang from the De Vere coat of arms, whose crest is a lion brandishing (shaking?) a spear. And there was that famous toast to De Vere, “Thy countenance shakes a spear.”

And Hamnet. A stretch by any other name... If you want to play the name game consider that De Vere lost a lot of money dealing with a disreputable fellow named Locke, and that in those days “shy” included disreputable or shady in its definitions. Shy...Locke? Scholars have found the name nowhere outside THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.