SB replied: Nope. In the same that George Orwell is the author of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four (and other works, of course), while not having been a real person.

JB wrote: To extend the legal metaphor, the mountain of circumstantial evidence surrounding De Vere—much exceeding what we know of Shaksper—would be enough to generate a conviction in most courts.

SB replied: And yet that William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon was the author of the plays ascribed to William Shakespeare in the First Folio (and elsewhere, of course) is the received opinion of virtually everyone, while De Vere (or anyone else) being the true author has remained pretty much a fringe theory.

SB replied: If there's no evidence, there's not much of a case.

SB replied: Hand D in the manuscript of Sir Thomas More, being named in the royal charter creating The King's Men alongside John Heminges and Henry Condell, who are in turn named in Will of Stratford's - uhm - will, and who in turn name him as the author of the plays they collect and arrange to be published in the First Folio which include a poem by Ben Jonson which, while teasing Shakespeare for his lack of learning, nevertheless extols his art, with Jonson subsequently making more scathing remarks about Shakespeare's supposed artistic deficiencies in his conversation with William Drummond and more mildly later again in his De Shakespeare Nostrat - but, while varying in his opinions of Shakespeare's writing, never once stating or even suggesting that he was not the author.

SB replied: As I understand it, a major part of the Oxfordian argument is the claim that, as an aristocrat, it would have been improper, perhaps even deeply shocking, for someone of Oxford's rank to have been seen as a mere playwright.

The fact that he was "widely praised" and suffered no consequences pretty much explodes that argument, doesn't it? 

Not only is there no evidence that he ever used a pseudonym, but obviously there was no need for him to have done so.

SB replied: In 1603, William Shakespeare is named among a list of people in the royal charter creating The King's Men in 1603. Also included in this list are Henry Condell and John Heminges.

SB replied: Jonson was truculent and pugnacious, prone to quarrels rather than inclined to secrecy.

In his commendatory poem in the First Folio, he teases Shakespeare's lack of learning, but praises his art.

In private conversation with William Drummond some years later, Jonson is harsher on Shakespeare (and others).

In De Shakespeare Nostrat, Jonson is again critical towards Shakespeare, but ends by commenting "But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned".

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SG: So is "publish" the wrong word? Is it fair to say that Richard Field at least printed Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece and The Phoenix and the Turtle, which were all attributed to Shakespeare?

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Mark Haslett wrote: So there is no way to conclusively state William of Stratford was an actor.

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SG: I realise that, but it's demonstrably true that there was a Will Shaksper in Stratford and an actor called William Shakespeare in London, correct?

Field and Shaksper were both from Stratford, contemporaries born three years apart, the lived in proximity of each other in a town of 1500-2000 people*, their fathers did know each other at least in terms of legal actions, Will Shaksper was 15 when Field left for London, and Field was a publisher/printer with some documented involvement in Shakespeare's poems.

(*My parents were born pre-WW2 into European villages that size and pretty much everybody knew everybody else.)

Not a smoking gun, no. There's still no evidence about Richard Field that directly demonstrates Shaksper was the author.

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SG: So it's entirely possible that Will Shaksper could have known Richard Field and even attended school with him?

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SG: Wouldn't he have been working in London?