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“Personally, I think some of Shakespeare’s plays were group efforts.”

Quite possible. But the primary author was very likely Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

For some reason Professors of English tend to cling tenaciously to the idea that William Shagsper, the Stratford grain merchant and actor was the author of the plays. I can believe that a man could rise from humble origins to write great literature, but not that such a man could leave illiterate children behind him.

Shakespeare was definitely not an atheist. Else how could he possibly write:
“To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?”

De Vere had Catholic sympathies, but was above all loyal to his cousin the Protestant Queen.

Shakespeare also slipped his name into the King James version of the Bible. Although it was published after his a few years after his De Vere’s death, it is not unreasonable to think he was asked to work on that project. Look at Pslam 46. The first word is Shake, count 46 words, and the word is spear. Maybe a coincidence.

I do believe in the 17th Earl of Oxford theory. This man had the education, military experience, travel experience, and the extensive inner court knowledge, that no commoner at the time could have been exposed to. I believe the speech that Polonius gave to Hamlet, was similar to the speech his father in law (William Cecil).

...I can believe that a man could rise from humble origins to write great literature, but not that such a man could leave illiterate children behind him.

Yesterday, I was so taken aback to see such a faithful rendering of Hamlet's speech, that I neglected your comment captured above.

You make a very interesting point, which I should probably not attempt to discuss, but I simply cannot help myself.

Assuming that the children were indeed his own, and further assuming that the works were all Shakespeare's own, I would wonder whether the children were dyslexic, or "word blind," as it was called in another time. The question of what tutors, if any, Shakespeare employed for his offspring would certainly have to be answered, as well.

I have no answers. But it is certainly an interesting point.

Edward de Vere died in 1604, though I suppose it would then be claimed that he had the likes of King Lear, Macbeth, The Winter´s Tale and The Tempest all at the ready for his post-mortem productions.

Then, there´s the First Folio compiled by Heminges and Condell who had known and worked with Shakespeare, with a dedicatory poem by Ben Jonson, who had also known him.

That Shakespeare was a negligent husband and father is generally known, since he was seldom in Stratford, except as a by then wealthy retiree who had obtained a Coat-Of-Arms primarily for his father´s memory and the attribution of Gentleman for himself.

Though I suppose we could surmise that after he farted in the Queen´s presence and went to travel in embarrassment for some seven years, that it was then that de Vere concocted his scheme of authorship...which makes about as much sense as any other such ¨conspiracy¨, even though no one ever thought of it for at least 150 years after Shakespeare´s death.