'SHAKESPEARE MURDERED' THEORY 'RIDICULOUS'

A leading authority on Shakespeare this week branded plans to exhume the Bard’s body and investigate conspiracy theories surrounding his death “ridiculous.”

Professor Stanley Wells, chair of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, believes suggestions that physician John Hall murdered his father-in-law in 1616 are slanderous.

Talking about the plans revealed by a top team of American pathologists to open Shakespeare’s grave at Holy Trinity Church, in Stratford, Prof Wells said: “The suggestion Shakespeare might have been murdered by his son-in-law is new to me and absolute nonsense.

“John Hall was a very highly respected physician. He was a churchgoing Protestant and pillar of the Church. The idea he may have murdered anybody is slanderous to him."