‘TRIXIE’ the Royal Cat that saved a Prince

‘TRIXIE’ was a Royal cat.

Her owner was a Prince who liked to dress extravagantly – flaunting black & white colours that symbolised Queen Elizabeth 1st. 

‘Black’ stood for constancy and ‘white’ for virginity, colours seen on the cuffs of Henry VVriothesley 3rd Earl of Southampton’s suede gloves, embroidered with Maltese crosses symbolising the ‘Knights Templar’. You will also notice this black & white theme reoccurring on the armorial design thoughtfully emblazoned on the reverse side of the bible overhanging the window ledge of his cell – while it appears a Prince gets a more salubrious cell than the hoi polloi with lead-light windows and panelled walls.

Theoretically, the heraldic device on the book should be an azure ground crossed with four hawks, but to my mind these birds are more evocative of Swans (Apollo’s birds) suggesting a poet such as the late Robert Devereux 2nd Earl of Essex, and if my eyes don’t deceive me – the cross is surmounted with a reference to the passion (a crown of five thorns) five being a highly significant number as our great author was created “the first” of five illegitimate brothers.  

‘The Eagle (VVriothesley) who suffers little birds to sing’.

The ’injunction’ (the first five stanza’s) of William Shakespeare’s famous metaphysical poem “The Phoenix and the Turtle” introduces us to a parliament of birds – A Phoenix, an Owl, an Eagle, a Swan and a Crow.

Henry VVriothesley (illustrated) is seen wearing a white satin doublet, while also known for his appreciation of large plumes of feathers, the reason amongst his closest circle he was known as “the Eagle”. The third stanza (P&T) begins referencing the illegal Requiem-service held for his princely half-brother ‘Essex’ (the Swan), with the Apollonian mourners comprising “Every foul” (water-birds) meaning poets and followers of the tyrant ‘Essex’.

From this ‘session interdict’
Every foul of tyrant wing
Save the eagle, feath’red king
Keep the obsequy so strict. (Stanza iii P&T)

During such dangerous times it was essential the congregation for this illegal requiem service was strictly regulated – an “obsequy so strict”. Although even in this darkest of dark hours (with Essex deceased & Southampton’s fate uncertain) our great author still managed to find humour in adversity, at a time these princely brothers’ fine white garments became defunct, when these rich habiliments (alluding to their Royal DNA) suddenly were no longer required!

Let the priest in surplice white.  (line 13 P&T)

Setting humour aside – of far greater significance is the black-silk-page-marker attached to Henry VVriothesley’s bible (a further allusion to our TRUE author) as we find its upper left-hand side formed of the 18th letter of the Greek alphabet – an upper-case sigma – surmounted with a ‘V’ for Vere.

This “Sigma/V” carries a simple message ‘Shakespeare’ is ‘Vere’ – our poet – who was the 17th Earl of Oxford Edward de Vere.

‘John Dee’ a compatriot and friend of Oxford’s in his work “The Hieroglyphic Monad” (1564) provides us with an introduction to gematria and how the intellectual Elizabethan mind envisaged this nexus of numbers and letters – the classical languages he mentions are: Greek, Latin & Hebrew.

There are specific reasons for the shapes of letters, their positions or places within the order of the Alphabet, their numerical value and many other things that must be considered with regard to the primary Alphabets of the three languages.

Gematria is a code in which individual letters are ascribed a numerical value, a system which rather obviously also gives all words a numerical summation, for instance the word “LAG” which appertains to ‘Essex’ found in ‘Edmund’s’ first soliloquy in “King Lear” amounts to ‘19’, a fact of considerably significance – we shall come to.

Naturally, all these gematrical equations must be considered in conjunction with the Elizabethan Alphabet – which is fundamentally the same as the classical Latin Alphabet. The first English-language writing manual by Jehan de Beau-Chesne and John Baildon wasn’t published until 1570, officially it had only 23 letters, excluding the three modern letters ‘J’, ‘U’ & ‘W’.

The following transcription represents a simple encoding.

A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, D = 4, E = 5, F = 6, G = 7, H = 8, I = 9, K = 10, L = 11, M = 12, N = 13, O = 14, P = 15, Q = 16, R = 17, S = 18, T = 19, V = 20, X = 21, Y = 22, Z = 23.

Gematrically speaking, our great author ‘Edward de Vere’ perceived the letter ‘S’ and the name ‘Southampton’ synonymously and precisely why his most beloved sonnet (S.18) is about the “faire Youth” Henry VVriothesley – who at the time of the painting was dispossessed of all possessions and titles and legally known as the ‘late Earl of Southampton’ as he and his recently executed brother ‘Essex’ had been convicted of high-treason.

‘S’ for Southampton is then part of the reasoning why in identifying himself ‘Oxford’ chose the Greek letter sigma in preference to the English letter ‘S’.

Amongst the elaborate symbolism found in the painting Henry VVriothesley and his cat TRIXIE in the Tower of London – even more evidence is found regarding who our great author was – as the armorial design on the book is enclosed within a letter ‘O’ which stands for Oxford, as increasingly we understand the protagonist and designer of the work to be the 17th Earl of Oxford Edward de Vere – while the execution of the painting itself is generally attributed to John de Critz who was soon to become Serjeant-painter to King James 1.

Now, although the following fact may initially seem incredulous – the painting was actually commissioned by Queen Elizabeth, who was so distraught by the sequence of events that bought about the execution of her own son ‘Essex’ it effectually led to her own demise – a denouement described by Shakespeare as “fever’s end” (Line ‘7’ P&T alludes to her d.o.b.). While we find “Ed-ward” in Lear allegorised by “Ed-mund” (his ‘mouth’ piece) who enunciates the following in his first soliloquy:

“For that I am some twelve or 14, mooneshines Lag of a brother”.

Twelve or ‘14’ are numbers alluding to the 17th Earl of Oxford Edward de Vere’s Royal nativity as his official birthday was April “twelve” 1550, while the actual day of his creation was ‘14’ July 1548. In the quarto unusually but deliberately Oxford had these two numbers printed in letters and numbers specifically to draw our attention to this intriguing revelation – importantly speaking of his Royal nativity – a period characterised by a simple sum: 12 + 14 = 26.

Oxford was no ordinary mortal, Sir Lawrence Olivier described Shakespeare as:

“The nearest thing in incarnation to the eye of God”.

Oxford was not only born on day ‘14’, but was born ‘14’ weeks prematurely to a ‘14’ year old princess, something confirmed in “King John” by the bastard character ‘Philip’ (the illegitimate son of a very famous King) ‘Coeur de Leon’ – rather like Oxford (who was an illegitimate son of a famous Queen) ‘Elizabeth’.

Philip’s legitimate brother ‘Robert Faulconbridge’ informs us that the “Bastard” came into this world:

Full ‘14’ weeks before the course of time.

Something alternatively seen as gestation week ‘26’, a fact confirmed by line ‘14’ of William Shakespeare’s Sonnet ‘26’ where Oxford – as if reading from the ‘Midwife’s Almanack’ (alluding to his own nativity) uses the following words:

Show my head.

The Essex/Christ Allusion

L*A*G equates gematrically to ‘XIX’ which in Greek is ‘Tau’ a symbol of the crucified Christ revered by the ‘Royal Arch Freemasons’ & ‘Knights Templar’.

This the first iteration of a clever device I like to refer to as “The Essex/Christ Allusion” found three times across the Shakespeare cannon – which shows eternal parallels twixt the lives of Essex & Christ, a term predicated on the Christian number ‘XIX’ as this was the date in February 1601 these Princely brothers were convicted of high treason. “The Essex/Christ Allusion” has the following meaning:

Both Essex & Christ were born of Virgins
And both put to death for their beliefs.

Unsurprisingly the second allusion is represented by sonnet ‘XIX’ its first stanza a tribute to ‘Essex’ where described as a “Lion & fierce tiger”, and we know our author is talking about his half-brother ‘Robert Devereux 2nd Earl of Essex’ as he identifies him twice honouring his title ‘2nd Earl’ in the first and second lines:

Devouring time blunt thou thy Lion’s paws
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce Tiger’s jaws
And burn the long-lived Phoenix in her blood.

Slam-dunk next! – the following is line ‘XIX’ of “The Phoenix and the Turtle”.

“With the breath thou giv’st and tak’st”.

Meaning: Elizabeth the virgin Queen gave breath to Essex at birth and when she signed his death warrant and he was executed she took his breath away.

Finally, why was “T*R*IX*I*E” the black & white gematrical cat in the Tower of London so named? This was so – because she had the honour of expressing the Godliness of our great author’s Princely family – whom he believed all divinely ordained in Heaven – a brotherhood (of five) he considered himself the soul of – a fact expressed in “Love’s Martyr” where we find him describing himself in Line ‘14’ of his ‘26’ lined poem “A Narration…” as:

The Soule of heavens labour’d Quint-essence.

“T*R*IX*I*E” the Royal cat that saved a Prince – had Roman-numerals prominently displayed in the middle of her name – in a sense proving how learned our great author was as ‘IX’ are Jesus Christs initials in Greek (Iota & Chi) his name: Ιησούς Χριστός.

T – Represents our author’s half-brother ‘Essex’ (letter 19 of the alphabet).

R – Represents his 17th Earldom (letter 17 of the alphabet).

IX – Unites princes all belonging to One Godly family (‘IX’ the initials of J.C.)

I – Represents number 9 (letter ‘IX’ of the alphabet).

E – Stands for Elizabeth (letter ‘5’ of the alphabet) Oxford’s mother.

I & E together 9 + 5 = ‘14’ – the TRUE date of Oxford’s creation July ‘14’ (the very day Romeo and Juliet met) and if you have ever wondered why ‘14’ deaths were necessary in “Titus Andronicus” now you know! If you read my analysis of (S.14) you will also learn that (‘17’s creation was on the ‘14th).

Lastly, there exists a great mythology as to how ‘TRIXIE’ found her way to her imprisoned master in the Tower-of-London – none of which are true!

The fact of the matter is a Prince was no ordinary prisoner and ‘One’ was allowed special concessions – especially in VVrothesley’s case having witnessed the execution of his own brother (and possible lover) ‘Essex’.

‘TRIXIE’ was allowed in the Tower to comfort her master – for at one point he was so ill with grief and the stress of his miserable situation – he found himself very close to death, so his feline friend became ‘TRIXIE’ the Royal cat that saved a Prince.

My work (of greater detail) “William Shakespeare’s – Sonnet 67” describes John de Critz painting of ‘Henry VVriothesley and ‘TRIXIE’ the gematrical cat in the Tower of London’ a work composed of great symbolism – orchestrated by Edward de Vere 17th Earl of Oxford and commissioned by his mother Queen Elizabeth 1.

 

‘TRIXIE’ the Royal cat that saved a Prince.
Philip Cooper fecit – July 14 2024.