Bigram Analysis: Neville's Letters vs. Shakespeare

I created an XML file of Neville's letters from Winwood's Memorials of Affairs of State, Vol 1 and 2. That's 89 letters Henry Neville wrote, mostly as ambassador from 1599-1601.

Using Pervez Rizvi's database of early modern English plays, I did a comparison of bigrams (two word combos) to see which plays more closely match the letters. I evaluated 239 plays from 1590-1615. The results are stunning. Shakespeare's plays rank at the top consistently:

Rank	Year	Similarity	Title
1	1613	0.6126	Henry VIII [Full Play]
2	1609	0.6079	The Winter's Tale
3	1599	0.5897	Henry V
4	1613	0.5866	Henry VIII [Shakespeare Section]
5	1610	0.5843	Cymbeline
6	1603	0.5736	All's Well That Ends Well
7	1600	0.5687	Cynthia's Revels (Jonson)
8	1597	0.5659	Henry IV, Part 2
9	1608	0.5652	Coriolanus
10	1602	0.5645	The Royal King and the Loyal Subject
11	1607	0.5597	The Tragedy of Charles Duke of Byron
12	1595	0.5585	Love's Labor's Lost
13	1603	0.5583	Measure for Measure
14	1599	0.5528	1 Edward the Fourth
15	1599	0.5509	Every Man Out of His Humour (Jonson)
16	1597	0.5473	Henry IV, Part 1
17	1605	0.5448	Philotas
18	1601	0.5431	Hamlet
19	1599	0.5420	2 Edward the Fourth
20	1609	0.5414	Epicoene (Jonson)
21	1591	0.5404	Henry VI, Part 2
22	1607	0.5398	The Conspiracy of Charles Duke of Byron
23	1605	0.5392	King Lear
24	1614	0.5381	The Hector of Germany
25	1614	0.5356	Bartholomew Fair (Jonson)
26	1604	0.5333	Sejanus His Fall (Jonson)
27	1613	0.5326	Henry VIII [Fletcher Section]
28	1606	0.5324	The Isle of Gulls
29	1604	0.5310	The Widow's Tears
30	1605	0.5301	Volpone (Jonson)
31	1611	0.5299	Catiline His Conspiracy (Jonson)
32	1606	0.5289	Antony and Cleopatra
33	1610	0.5285	The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois
34	1614	0.5280	The Staple of News
35	1598	0.5240	Every Man in His Humour (Jonson)
36	1592	0.5216	A Knack to Know a Knave
37	1590	0.5210	Jack Straw
38	1596	0.5205	The Merchant of Venice
39	1604	0.5187	When You See Me You Know Me
40	1595	0.5173	Richard II

This is not conclusive evidence that Henry Neville wrote the works of Shakespeare. But it is an objective and reproducible test that shows a clear affinity between the two-word phrases Henry Neville and Shakespeare used. 

This overlap is partly due to the topic of the plays aligning with the experiences Neville had as ambassador. This is not a defect in this study. Quite the opposite, the overlap is another piece of strong evidence.

This research was done with the help of Claude Code. 

I ran a similar test, with the help of ChatGPT Codex, that reduces reliance on topical words.  "The new test uses function‑word bigrams only (top 200 MFW), then compares length‑matched windows with bootstrapping and reports mean ± std. This reduces topical bias and makes comparisons fairer across different text lengths." Very similar results:

Rank	Year	Title	Mean_Sim
1	1613	Henry VIII [Shakespeare Sect]	0.7802
2	1613	Henry VIII	0.7548
3	1599	Henry V	0.7533
4	1607	Tragedy of Charles Duke of Byron	0.7435
5	1607	Conspiracy of Charles Duke of Byron	0.7386
6	1609	The Winter's Tale	0.7342
7	1605	Philotas	0.7341
8	1606	Macbeth	0.7309
9	1614	The Hector of Germany	0.7268
10	1595	Richard II	0.7219
11	1604	Sejanus His Fall	0.7207
12	1610	Cymbeline	0.7202
13	1608	Coriolanus	0.7191
14	1597	Henry IV, Part 2	0.7165
15	1590	The Reign of King Edward the Third	0.7160
16	1591	Locrine	0.7147
17	1606	The Rape of Lucrece	0.7130
18	1592	Summer's Last Will and Testament	0.7129
19	1610	The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois	0.7117
20	1603	The Family of Love	0.7116
21	1596	King John	0.7108
22	1592	Henry VI, Part 1	0.7106
23	1606	Hymenaei	0.7103
24	1603	All's Well That Ends Well	0.7094
25	1595	Love's Labor's Lost	0.7091
26	1611	The Atheist's Tragedy	0.7089
27	1591	1 The Troublesome Reign of King John	0.7055
28	1613	Henry VIII [Fletcher Section]	0.7018
29	1604	The Widow's Tears	0.7017
30	1590	The Love of David and Fair Bathsheba	0.7012
31	1593	The Massacre at Paris	0.7005
32	1611	Catiline His Conspiracy	0.6993
33	1591	Henry VI, Part 2	0.6987
34	1591	2 The Troublesome Reign of King John	0.6970
35	1610	The Golden Age	0.6965
36	1606	The Isle of Gulls	0.6942
37	1614	The Staple of News	0.6939
38	1603	Measure for Measure	0.6935
39	1606	Antony and Cleopatra	0.6930
40	1590	Jack Straw	0.6928

I have placed all the necessary information to reproduce both tests here: https://nevilleresearch.com/bigram/