Dan Brown's purpose was to fool the gullible by writing extremely "well researched" fiction. The popularity of his books stem partly the "non-fiction" elements.
If Shakespeare is known to have written his plays in an attempt to re-write history and fool the gullible, then he's just as bad as Dan Brown. Did he do this? Please post a link if you have one.
I'm reading a book by Orson Scott Card called "Red Prophet". In this book, Governor Harrison from the late 1700s is made into a terrific monster of a human being. Orson Scott Card specifically cites that he was never such a monster as portrayed in his book. So, when I read the book, I'm not lied to - it was pure story telling on Card's part and will never be confused with real, actual research.