Possible Clues:

• Shakespeare role, sweet one, seized by returning star
• Game I found in paperback finished by 16
• Game, the first in the 'Rising Sun', finished behind the arras
• Shakespeare's chamberlain, so solemn faced, left one to shoulder the burden
• Character in 15 down
• Ophelia's father (Hamlet)
• 'To thine own self be true' speaker
• Explorer back in country, one caught spying on royalty
• "Hamlet" role
• King's counsellor put interior of colony under protection of pope