William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby

Who was William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby?

William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby, KG was an English nobleman. Stanley inherited a prominent social position that was both dangerous and unstable, as his mother was heir to Queen Elizabeth I under the Third Succession Act, a position that fell to his deceased brother's oldest daughter in 1596, shortly after William took the title of Earl. After a period of European travel in his youth, a long legal battle eventually consolidated the Earl's social position. Nevertheless, he was careful to remain circumspect in national politics, devoting himself to administration and cultural projects, including playwriting.

His own literary works are lost or unidentified, but in the 1890s he was put forward as one of the contenders to be the true author of the works of William Shakespeare, according to some proponents of the Shakespeare authorship question.