Primrose Road

Yes, Walt Whitman seems to have believed that Francis Bacon wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare: he wrote a poem about the matter, discussed the "cipher" with Horace Traubel, and DoubtAboutWill.org quotes the following from November Boughs:

"Conceived out of the fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism — personifying in unparall'd ways the medieval aristocracy, its towering spirit of ruthless and gigantic cast, its own peculiar air and arrogance (no mere imitation) — only one of the 'wolfish earls' so plenteous in the plays themselves, or some born descendent and knower, might seem to be the true author of those amazing works — works in some respects greater than anything else in recorded history."

I'm going to take the high road here and *not* mention that Whitman also believed in Phrenology. (I suppose I just did.) E.M.W. Tillyard made an argument similar to Whitman's (minus the "authorship" claim, of course) in 1942: Shakespeare's plays seemed to reinforce a view of an hierarchically organized world order. Except Tillyard, Whitman, and those who would claim that Shakespeare's plays reflect the point of view of a nobleman overlook CONTEXT.

First, the "world order" speeches are more often than not placed in the mouths of tyrannical (or senile) kings. Second, the "degree" speech in Troilus and Cressida to which Tillyard and others refer:

How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! (T&C 1.3)

is spoken by Ulysses, the Greek solider trying to explain to his men why they don't seem to be winning the war. This assertion of ideology is followed by a second speech, in which Ulysses explains what the actual problem is: Achilles, who should be their best solider, is lying in bed with Patroclus all day and mocking the Greek generals. Far from reinforcing "degree," Ulysses' speeches reveal how sharp a divide there can be between ideology and practice, especially when it comes to war.

So, while this doesn't conclusively "prove" that Shakespeare wasn't a nobleman, it surely undercuts the argument that evidence of Shakespeare's supposed noble status is in the plays themselves.