Diplomat 'was real Shakespeare' The authorship of Shakespeare's plays has often been questioned An Elizabethan diplomat named Sir Henry Neville was the real author of William Shakespeare's plays, a new book claims.The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare says the courtier, nicknamed "Falstaff" by close friends, used Shakespeare as a "front man". The book by Brenda James and Professor William Rubinstein contains a foreword by Mark Rylance, artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. Many experts remain sceptical at claims to have found the "real" Shakespeare. Jonathan Bate, professor of Renaissance Literature at the University of...