Timothy Spearman writes

The featured paintings include one of Edward de Vere, Lord Oxford, at the age of 36, by Marcus Gheeraedts, and another under his pen name William Shakespeare, by John Taylor, which he sat for just before his official death at age 54, when his death was faked and he was sent into exile on the Isle of Mersea near Colchester, Essex County. He was exiled following the death of his mother Queen ElizabetI in 1603 as he was considered a threat to the throne by King James I. The conjecture is that the subject featured in the Taylor portrait of Shakespeare is the same man shown in the Gheeraedts portrait, only advanced in age by some fifteen years and therefore with a receding hairline resulting from middle age.