f Christopher Marlowe O in London T A /hen Christopher Marlowe settled in London some l/ \/ time in the year 1587 the city was far smaller than Y Y it is today. Within the walls built by the Romans more than a thousand years before, London was a parcel of some 380 acres of land on the north bank of the Thames river. The liberties of the city, in one of which Marlowe lived, con- sisted of another 300 acres outside the walls. The city and its liberties with a population of about 90,000 inhabitants con- tained 113 parishes, divided into twenfy-six wards, each ward represented by an alderman. The city was govemed by a Lord Mayor, a Court of Alder- men and a Common Council. The Lord Mayor was elected from one of the twelve principal companies or corporations of traders; these were the mercers, the grocers, the drapers, the fishmongers, the goldsmiths, the skinners, the merchant tailors, the the salters, the ironmongers, the vintners, and the clothworkers. There were some seventy other companies or guilds in the city, noteworthy among which was the Company of Stationers or booksellers. The first Roman settlement of London had been on the banks of the Walbrook, at that time a stream navigable from 74 Christopher Marloute 0- 5 64-1 607 ) g75 the Thames to the present Poultry. The early Roman town was defended by a fort south of Cripplegatg the fort's two main streets coinciding approximately with the later Wood and Adle Streets. About the year 150 AD the Romans sur- rounded the city with a stone'wall, of which the fort became the northwest comer. The Romans abandoned England about the year 500 AD and the wall, breached by invading Saxons, undermined by the river and repaired by Alfred the Great, stood well into the eighteenth century when it lost its last battle to the London Sewer Department. A major feature of the city was the stone bridge across the Thames. Remains of an early Roman bridge of wood still turned up from time to time: iron fittings of admirable quality. A later Saxon bridge of wood was easily pulled down by invading Danes. The stone bridge that stood in Marlowe's time had been built 400 years earlier by a priest and ferry operator, Peter of Colechurch. To construct the bridge, closely fitted tongue and groove wooden piles were driven into the river bed to form a series of water-tight enclosures which were then filled with stone and gravel. Each one of these islands, spaced at about 50 foot intervals, was then covered with several layers of wooden beams laid at right angles, and upon this foundation the stone arches were built. This bridge remained in service until L83L when it was replaced with the second stone bridge about L00 feet upstream. The London bridge of Marlowe's time was lined on both sides by shops and living quarters; with hundreds of inhabit- ants it ranked as a ward of the City. The merchants of the bridge were for the most part drapers and mercers selling products from the mills of Kent. On the bridge there was an exquisitely built stone chapel, once dedicated to St. Thomas Becket. Henry VIII later had it renamed Lady Chapel. The Bridge Gate at the southem end, like other gates of the city, displayed from above the heads of traitors mounted on iron pikes. fust north of the Bridge gate was the draw bridge long out of use, and near the north bank mill wheels for grinding grain and a waterworks which pumped water to a reservoir atop the tower of St. Magnus Church. London was enviably situated on a tidal river which twice a day provided transportation to and from the sea. The river itself was indispensable for the transportation of hay and coal, the principal sources of energy for the city. Ships from all 76e Louis Ule nations had their wharves along the river, bringing gold from Arabi4 spices from Sabi4 armor from Srythia-oil-from Baby- lon" precious stones from Egypt, ambergris and sables from Norway and Russia, and wine from Germany and France. There were also books, the latest fashions and works of art from the Netherlands, from Italy and from France. The river gave access to products of the realm: coal from Wales, Scot- land and Kenf stone from Kent and Portsmouth, oak and deal from coastal forests, iron from Ken! Wales and Sheffield and herring from Yarmouth. The river also accommodated local traffic: lighters which took cargoto-wharves upstream of the Bridge ind rivermen p!! provided a taxi s_ervice for passengers, cillittg "Eastward ho!" or "Westward ho!" or transporting passengers to the southembank, Bankside, for performancei it the BEar Garden or one of the playhouses. jusi downriver of the bridge at Bill- ingsgate there w-ere several barges which took passeigers and cargo on the tide to and from Gravesend. From Grivesend travel was on foot or horse, to the cities of Rochester, Canter- bury and Dover in Kent. While the river was the city's main east-west artery, the pri{Se formed_one s-egment of London's principal north-south highway. Soyth.oj te bridge in Southwark it *as called High Street-north of the bridge it became Fish Street which turn6d successively into Grace Church Stree! Gratious Stree! and finally Bishop's Gate Street on both sides of the northern wall o{$_t" cJty. About half a mile north of the wall in the Liberty Northern Folgate the highway was called -of Northern Folgate; beyond Northem Folgate it became Shoreditch. Marlovie at one time lived in Northern Folgate, not far from two play- houses: the Theatre and the Cur-tairu located in Shoreditch. London boasted Tany imposing buildings, notable among them St. Paul's Cathedral ind the Towei of London. Th; Tower of London which formed the southeast corner of Lon- don Wall had actually been built by the Norman conquerors and not by the Romans as the Elizabethans believed. It still stands. Paul's Cathedral, at 512 feet once the tallest spire in Europe had been built by the Normans after the fire o? tOgZ. As a defense against fire the lower portion up to a height of 260 feet was built of stone imported from Caens. The upper structure of wood was destroyed by fire in 1551. The present Cathedral was built by Sir Christopher Wren in the eighteenth Christopher Marloute (1 564-1' 507 ) 277 cenfury. In Marlowe's time London's booksellers were situ- ated aiong Paul's Churchyard, a street that ran south of the Cathedral. Two notable events occurred about the time Marlowe ar- rived in London in February of 1587.In 1586 the Babington plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth, in which the captive Mury Queen of Scots was implicated, had cast such a spell of fear over the populace that the news of her execution at Fotheringay on February 8,1587 was an occasion fo-r sponta- neous c6lebrations and bonfires burning throughout the night. It was the third such plot in 20 years in which the Queen of Scots was involved. Three days later on February LL there was the spectacle of Sir Philip Sidney's funeral at Paul's Cathedral, ittended by hundreds of distinguished moumers. Sidney's heroic death in battle the previous year had caught the fublic imagination with the arrival at Tower Hill of liis Uoay aboard the Black Pinnace suited in sails of black. The Earl of Pembroke, Sidney's brother-in-law had then entered London with a train of 150 horiemen and, on Novem- ber 10, he was followed by his Countess, Sidney's sister. As told by a Spanish observer: Lady Pembroke made a superb entrance into the city. She has been for more than a year on her estates in the country' Before her went 40 gentlemen on horseback, two by two, all very finely dressed with gold chains. Then came a coach in which was the Countess and a lady, then another coach with more ladies, and after that a litter containing the children, and four ladies on horseback. After them 40 or 30 servants in her livery with blue cassocks. The Countess and her childrery William, age six, Philip, age four, and Ann, two years old, perhaps excited the more pity for not being in obvious mourning. The three month delay for the funeial had been due to Philip Sidney's debts which his father- in-law, Sir Francis Walsingham, was obliged to pay off with 86,000. Hardly had the Blaik Pinnace landed when Fulke Greville, Sidney's tifelogg friend, sought to raise funds The Countess by selling his copy of Sidney's unpublished -of Pembrokeis Arcadia to a bookbinder, Ponsonby, in Paul's Churchyard, a sale that was to prove as profitable to Pon- sonby as a copyright on the Bible. 78e Louis Ule In London Marlowe appears to have been employed in the service of Her Majesty, the Queeru as appears from the June 29,'l.587letter from the Privy Council where it is stated that "he had done her Majesty good service and deserved to be rewarded for his faithful dealing." There is evidence for at least two kinds of service in which he may have been em- ployed as well as speculation that he served as a spy under Sir Francis Walsingham. In an October 1.587 letter to Lord Burghley from Utrecht a Mr. Morley is mentioned as one of Lord Burghley's messengers. In another letter to Lord Bur- ghley in September 1592 Elizabeth, the Dowager Countess of Shrewsbury (better known as Bess of Hardwick) stated that "One Morley, who hath attended on Arbell [Lady Arbella Stuart] and read to her for the space of three years and a half, had lived in hope to have some annuity granted him alleging that he was so much damaged by leaving the University." In London Christopher Marlowe is found living in the lib- erty of Norton Folgate as we learn from his being admitted with Thomas Watson to Newgate Prison for his part in the Bradley duel.