The theory that both Chester's and Shakespeare's poems were intended to refer to the relationship between Elizabeth and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex was first proposed by A.B. Grosart in 1878, and was revived by William Matchett in 1965.[11] Many authors who reject the identification of the lovers as Essex and Elizabeth nevertheless argue that the events of Essex's rebellion and execution in early 1601 may lie behind some of the more obscure symbolism in the poem and the others in the collection.[12] Sir John Salusbury had been knighted for helping to suppress the rebellion, while his cousin Owen Salusbury was killed while participating in it. Sir John's brother, Thomas Salusbury, had been executed after the earlier Babington Plot against Elizabeth. Duncan-Jones and Woudhuysen argue that Salusbury was "love's martyr" for putting devotion to his queen above his family.[6] Peter Ackroyd and James P. Bednarz both argue that Shakespeare may have written the poem to dissociate himself from Essex, with whom he was implicated because of his links to Essex's main ally the Earl of Southampton, and because his play about the overthrow of a monarch, Richard II, had been performed at the request of the rebels.