Hi orda,
It's an attractive theory, especially with respect to his travels in Italy. The Hamlet theory is also a neat fit. He was trained in the law. etc.
But I would still put it a distant second to the Stratfordian argument, for which the direct evidence is fairly overwhelming, in my view
eg Ben Jonson knew the man: "He was not of an age, but for all time."
eg the folks who worked with him in the theatre published his plays and don't seem to have doubted his authorship.
The De Vere evidence is all circumstantial and the poetry of his that we know is not such as to persuade me (at least) that he was the author of the sonnets or of Lear.
It is not all that surprising that Shakespeare's life is not well-documented. It is not altogether surprising that a person with such a towering genius was able to absorb information from all kinds of sources and could weave it into poetry.
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