New evidence suggests Shakespeare may have stolen the plot of Cymbeline

Notes from a 1533 book put Sir Thomas North in the frame for one of the bard's later plays

A rare 16th-century book offers compelling evidence" that William Shakespeare's Cymbeline was inspired by a now-lost play by Sir Thomas North, an Elizabethan courtier and writer, new research claims.

A 1533 edition of Fabyan's Chronicle, a compendium of British and French history from Roman times to Henry VII, bears notes in the margin in North's hand that has been linked to the plot and other details of Shakespeare's tragicomedy, set in Roman Britain.