But the application, which was supported by other local clergymen, has been thrown out by Charles Mynors, Chancellor of the Diocese of Worcester, who ruled there was nothing to link the skull to Shakespeare. Chancellor Mynors said: “I have seen no scholarly or other evidence that comes anywhere near providing any support for the truth of the story.” 
 
 The Sheldon Capel at St Leonards Church, Beoley 
 
 The skull has lain in a vault beneath Sheldon Chapel at St Leonard’s Church, Beoley, Redditch. "The problem for us now is that the failure to conduct a detailed investigation will result in a higher level of uninformed speculation" Rev Richard Clark, the Team Rector at Holy Trinity Redditch 
 
 However, the second article claimed that this was never done and that ultimately the skull was traced to the church at Beoley, about 15 miles from Stratford. Rev Paul Irving, vicar at St Leonard’s, applied to the Church of England’s Consistory Court for permission to temporarily remove the skull for DNA testing, as part of a new documentary investigation into the claims. The tall tale was spawned by two magazine articles, printed in 1879 and 1884. The first claimed that in 1769 Walpole offered £300 to anyone who could obtain the skull of Shakespeare, who was buried at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford and whose grave bears an epitaph cursing anyone who should attempt to move his bones. It claimed that a Dr Frank Chambers broke into Shakespeare's tomb and stole the skull but then failed to persuade Walpole or any-one else to hand over money for it, so arranged for it to be returned to the tomb. The author of the articles is not known but is thought may have Rev C J Langston, vicar of Beoley from 1881 to 1889. In a judgment running to nearly 7,000 words, Chancellor Mynors, a barrister, sided with prominent Shakespeare scholars who have rubbished the claims and concluded they read “like a piece of Gothic fiction”. He said he had seen “no scholarly or other evidence that comes anywhere near providing any support for the truth of the story” and that there was “nothing whatsoever to link it to William Shakespeare” 
 
 He concluded that "the curiosity as to the skull at Beoley has no factual base whatsoever to justify exhumation, removal or investigation”.
– Like to size up the cranium that once held the brain behind Macbeth, Hamlet, and roughly 1,500 words we still use today? Well, it's bad news for you—and anyone who believes William Shakespeare's skull is lying under a small village chapel in England, the Birmingham Mail reports. Seems a clergyman at St. Leonard's Church in Beoley, Redditch, asked to have the skull there removed for a quick DNA test and saw his request denied. "The curiosity as to the skull at Beoley has no factual base whatsoever to justify exhumation, removal, or investigation," says church lawyer Charles Mynors, who issued the denial in a nearly 7,000-word report. "The whole enterprise is entirely speculative." Shakespeare scholars are on his side, but local folklore and two mysterious articles tell a different tale. Dated 1879 and 1884, the anonymous articles claim that a doctor dug up Shakespeare's skull to win a reward offered by an art historian in 1769, the Telegraph reports. But after the doctor couldn't get his money, the skull was buried in a vault under St. Leonard's Church. With the Rev. Paul Irving's request for a DNA test now denied, area clergymen are licking their wounds: "There is this skull sitting there on its own and we would love to know who it is," says a reverend who oversees the Beoley church. "The problem for us now is that the failure to conduct a detailed investigation will result in a higher level of uninformed speculation." As it happens, Shakespeare's tombstone epitaph at Stratford-upon-Avon includes a warning against grave-robbers: "Bleste be the man that spares thes stones," it reads in part. "And curst be he that moves my bones." (Researchers have credited Shakespeare with a new play.)