Actually, there are many contemporaneous references to the person who was the most highly esteemed and recognized author/poet amongst the court: Oxford.
On another note, in our modern age, with freedom of speech and assembly, it is difficult to imagine a time when one could be executed or imprisoned for treason/sedition by ridiculing some of Elizabeth's most powerful ministers within Hamlet, Macbeth, et al. Only someone with court protection/stature could have gotten (barely) away with it.
Which may be true, but it is not the same thing as saying that any of these sources suggested that Oxford was, in fact, the author of the plays attributed to Shakespeare.
Now - let us concede the Oxfordian claim that no one dared make such a claim because Oxford would be scandalized by it: noblemen did not associate themselves with anything so vile as the stage. There is truth to this, although givenm that Oxford did not lack for enemies or for scandals attached to his name, and given the undeniable prominence of the Shakespeare plays, it's odd that no one ever made the claim even to deliberately damage Oxford.
But even if not, why the veil of silence even after Oxford's death in 1604? It just strikes me as odd. More than a few people would have to be part of a conspiracy, and they would have to maintain it for many years after Oxford's death.
Not until the mid-18th century do we get even the first suggestion by anyone that Shakespeare was not Shakespeare - and not until many years later than that that Oxford was really the man.
It just seems to me an awful lot to swallow.
On another note, in our modern age, with freedom of speech and assembly, it is difficult to imagine a time when one could be executed or imprisoned for treason/sedition by ridiculing some of Elizabeth's most powerful ministers within Hamlet, Macbeth, et al. Only someone with court protection/stature could have gotten (barely) away with it.
Perhaps, but given how out of favor Oxford was at court in his final years, it seems his status might have been more liability than help.
And of course after James' accession in 1603, Oxford would have had even less cachet at court.