birth_date: 1951-06-02 00:00:00
avg_rating: 4.01
name: Clare Asquith
about: Clare Asquith, Countess of Oxford and Asquith (born 2 June 1951) is a scholar and the author of Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare, which posits that Shakespeare was a recusant Catholic whose works contain code which was used by the Catholic underground, particularly the Jesuits, in Reformation England, but also appealed to the monarchy in a plea for toleration. Asquith's book was the first to note the existence of the code as a subtext in Shakespeare. The work was hailed by many, including Catholic writer Piers Paul Read as "dramatic, important" and demonstrating "painstaking scholarship."She has lectured on Shakespeare in both the UK and North America. Her ideas about sixteenth-century code were first Clare Asquith, Countess of Oxford and Asquith (born 2 June 1951) is a scholar and the author of Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare, which posits that Shakespeare was a recusant Catholic whose works contain code which was used by the Catholic underground, particularly the Jesuits, in Reformation England, but also appealed to the monarchy in a plea for toleration. Asquith's book was the first to note the existence of the code as a subtext in Shakespeare. The work was hailed by many, including Catholic writer Piers Paul Read as "dramatic, important" and demonstrating "painstaking scholarship."She has lectured on Shakespeare in both the UK and North America. Her ideas about sixteenth-century code were first raised while observing coded messages in Russian dissident plays while her husband served as a diplomat in Moscow during the cold war and were first published in The Shakespeare Newsletter and The Times Literary Supplement.Asquith was born Mary Clare Pollen, eldest daughter of Anthony Baring Pollen (1926-1987) and Marie Therese Sheridan (later Viscountess Sidmouth, wife of the 7th peer). She lives in Somerset, England with her husband, former diplomat Raymond Asquith, Viscount Asquith (whom she married in 1978) and their five children. ...more