Figment of fiction

Anonymous (2011)
One thing laudable about a mature society is the acceptance of alternative versions to the widely accepted version. This is the stark contrast to what is seen in an infantile society where people go up in arms if a little creativity or critical thinking is given to the official version. With things neither black or white in the modern world, they forget that the truth is almost always hidden somewhere between 'the truth' and 'the rumour'. For the longest time, we have been shoved down our throats half truths and lies. Now, those days are long gone. Information is king. As the French philosopher, Jean-François Lyotard predicted, we are now at a crossroad where we have way too much information and the time has come where nations would go to war to gain control over this commodity and cow their fellow beings into submission!
There has been a famous conspiracy theory going around which suggests that it is most likely that William Shakespeare could not have written all the evergreen plays that the history books claim he had. In those days, knowledge and artistic indulgence were the privilege of the royalty and aristocrats. Shakespeare haling from the working class just could not have done himself, writing all those historical tragedies and comedies set in a different era, all written in poetic English that had stood the test of time.

Here, Shakespeare is depicted as a drunkard, a semi-illiterate and a womanizing actor who blackmails the original writer of the scripts Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford. 

The Queen and the real 'Shakespeare'

The Earl is madly indulged into writing plays that he basically wastes his whole property away. He alleges that a voice compels him to write. He keeps stacks and stacks of stories until he met a playwright, Ben Johnson, to stage his plays. You see, they were living in a time when art, stage and drama was considered unholy, the work of Satan.

The Queen at that time, however, Queen Elizabeth I was a sucker for stage performances. The other fictional part of the film is about the monarch herself. Even though, Queen Elizabeth I has always been embodied as a virtuous queen with the title 'The Virgin Queen', here she is displayed as a nymphomaniac. She has many illegitimate sons without knowledge, all covered up by her scheming minister advisor William Cecil.  

De Vere, the Earl and writer, starts an affair with the Queen after she is fascinated with his play. That union resulted in him to sire a son who is given to adoption. History says that she was the last monarch from the Tudor Dynasty who did not have a heir. In this film, Willian Cecil and his son deviously throne King James I of Scotland as the king after her. 

We are also told De Vere had an incestous relationship as the Queen is also his mother that he did not know!

The film progressed with excellent backdrop of the 16th century England with stories of deceit and vice. 

After the death of de Vere, Ben Johnson is given the remaining manuscripts. The truth of the real author remains a mystery. 

As you can see, the story is quite treacherous and putting many people of high standings in history in a very bad light. In the name of artistic license and freedom of expression, nobody really creates a ruckus. They all know it is a work of fiction.... Just like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy!