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Visit to Canterbury L3. Visit to Canterbury On 9 May r59z Kit Marlowe appeared before Sir Owen Hopton, 3n for Middlesex, and was bound over in the sum of dzo to attend the Michaelmas Assizes; he was to keep the peace towards Allen Nicholls, constable of Holywell Street, and Nicholas Helliott, under-constable. Holywell Street was in the theatrical area, as James Burbage had built the Theatre on grounds once belonging to the dissolved priory of Holywell and the street still bore its name. Small fracas like the one in which Kit Marlowe was involved were fairly usual and no harm came to him. Also, in this case of r59zhe was referred to as 'Christopher Marle of London, gentle- man', while he had been 'yoman' two years before in the Newgate affair. Shakespeare was involved in a similar dispute in November 1596, when William Wayte, stepson of a Surrey magistrate, S7illiam Gardiner, claimed that Francis Langley, who had bought the Paris Garden at Bankside to build a theatre, with William Shakespeare, Dorothy Soer and Anne Lee, threatened his life. Wayte took out 'sureties of the peace . for fear of death and so forth'. The foursome must have prevailed as the Swan was built on this garden, though Langley ran into trouble later and Shakespeare, who had lived in the parish of St Helens, Bishopsgate, moved across the river leaving behind an unpaid due of five shillilgs. Nevertheless, the incident in Holywell Street foreshadowed the disaster of the following year. More people than Marlowe would have been involved with these two constables. After having been for some months without Tom Watson's companionship, Kit Marlorye was more likely to fall into such rrr WHO WAS KIT MARLOWE? VISIT TO CANTERBURY situations and Stralsingham family protdgds were less protected Burleigh's nephews, Anthony and Francis Bacon - a surprising since the death of their most powerful member, Sir Francis, choice, but they were loyal to Essex. The justification for the spy in r59o. service was claimed to be the continuing hostility of Spain, and The repercussions of Sir Francis's death were still felt at court, its support for a Catholic succession in England. In 1594, the as Queen Elizabeth had not yet filled his post of Secretary and year after Marlowe's death, Essex was to use Marlowe's play was not to do so for six years. The trn'o immediate results were The lew of Malta to stir up feeling against a Pornrguese few he Lord fell ploys, such as staging politically that Burleigh to motiv- alleged was a spy. This man, Dr Lopez, was physician to Queen plays, persuade ated to the Queen to appoint his son to this post, Elizabeth, and Essex claimed he intended to poison the Queen. the Essex, who and Earl of was married to Sir Francis's daughter, Though the Queen called Essex 'a rash and temerarious youth' increased because position had his ambitions the was unfilled. for arresting her doctor, and Robert Cecil had assured the Queen Shakespeare's portrait of Polonius in Hamlet describes Burleigh's that the allegations could not be proved Essex wrote to Anthony habit at this time of imparting wise maxims to his son. For Bacon: 'The point of conspiracy was Her Majesty's death. The example: 'Be sure to keep some great man thy frien{ but trouble executioner should have been Dr Lopez; the manner poison. This him not with trifles . Towards thy superiors be humble, yet I have so followed as I will make it appear as clear as the noon generous. $(rith thine equals familiar, and yet respective. Towards day.' And so he did. With Cecil he examined Dr Lopez and others thine inferiors show much humanity and some familiarity.' And in the Tower, and under torture enough circumstantial evidence 'Open not thy gate to flatterers, nor thine ears to backbiters.' was amassed to send Dr Lopez for trial and execution. London Shakespeare made his character Polonius say in Hamlet: theatregoers saw in The lew of Malta the Portuguese Jew getting his deserved punishment. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar; 13 merged company put a The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried On July r59z Lord Strange's on performance in Canterbury for the mayor, aldermen, council and Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel. local residents, the payment shillings a . Beware for which was thirty - good house. It is very likely that they staged Kit Marlowe's The Of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in, .many Malta, and that some play's Canterbury Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee. lew of of the references date from this performance. The mention of the Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice . 'dark entqr', for example, is apt from an old pupil of King's School as it So Shakespearc's Hamlel was put to political use, as well as was between the school and the cathedral through Prior Sellinge- his Nchard II and Marlowe's Edward II. Kit Marlowe and gate; and the Jew sending poisoned broth into the nunnery Shakespeare were broadly speaking in the same political factiono through the 'dark entry' would help the audience to identify with as the Walsinghams were connected with the Earl of Essex by the play. Another example was in Act v when Frances's marriage to him, and Shakespeare's patron the Earl of there is a monastery Southampton was one of Essex's most devoted adherents. Know Selim, that Sfhich standeth as the When Essex was building his importance at court he en- an out-house to town deavoured to set up a personal spy service even better than that referred to the ruined St Augustine's Abbey, well known to of his deceased father-in-law. To this end he employed nvo of Canterbury residents, where Kit Marlowe had played as a child. itz I13 WHO WAS KIT MARLOWE? VISIT TO CANTERBURY Even 'out-house'was a word with Kent connotations. such a play was The lew, which was one of the sources of Kit Another telling example was the name of one of the ships in the Marlowe's play. The few, sudGosson, exposed the 'greediness of argosy -'The Flyrng Dragon'- as a ship of that name visited worldly choosers'. Dover harbour regularly in the r56os, and Dover was only fifteen Something most disrressing for Kit Marlowe happened in miles from Canterbury and easily visitable. september r5gz- his friend Thomas lfatson died. Lifi for Tom Some of the actors for this performance may have boarded Watson had not been the same joyous affair since the Bradlcy with Kit's motler, as lohn Marlowe's estabtshment was close affray and his consequeng impdssnment, though he had written to where the performance took place. Kit was definircly in Canter- a memorial poem to Sir Francis S7alsingham and published bury in September, and probably came earlier to see the local a book of madrigals since his release. performance of his play, remaining in Canterbury because of the He was buried on z6 September in the churchyard of St plague which was virulent in London but had not yet reached Bartholomew-the-Less. His praises were sung in verse by fellow Canterbury. poets Spenser, Peele, Nashe, Lodge, Daniel, Clarke, the argumen- Kit quarrelled with a part-time musician at the cathedral, tative Harveg and surprisingly and apparently unashamJdy by William Corkine, and a duel took place in which neither party .Amyntas' Fraunce, who had earlier translated Watson,s from was iniured. However, they were taken to court where a reconcilia- Latin and passed it as his own poem. Kit Marlowe was still in tion occurred. William Corkine's son, the lutenist of the same canterbury at the time of watson's death, and his return would name, set Kit's lyric 'Come Live With Me and'Be My Love' to have been sad indeed when he heard the news of his friend,s music so the reconciliation became active cooperation. burial. Coincidentally one of the most vocal Puritan opponents of the Kit Marlowe made his own memorial to Watson. He took had been born in the same Canterbury parish as Marlowe theatre watson's new Latin poem'Am;mtae Gaudia, to rhe publishers, Gosson, the writer, and son of Cornelius Gosson the and - Stephen dedicated it to the same person as Fraunce had chosen for the grocer's daughter. Gosson attacked not his ioiner and his wife version of watson's 'Amyntas'- the much sought-after pa&on place stage, but the behaviour of the Lady pembroke. only what took on the sidney, countess of It was a very moving aiaica- Roman audiences, but his most bitter tion audience. He also criticized in which he referred to 'rlis posthumous Amyntas', which he words were for the London theatres. urged Lady sidney to treat as 'rhine adoptive son: the rather that his dying father had most humbly bequeathed . .In our assemblies at plays in London, you shall see such heaving to tree his keeping'. and shoving, such itching and shouldering, to sit by women. Not As Kit Marlowe's association pembroke's that any filthiness in deed is committed within the compass of that with the Earl of players dates ground, as was done in Rome, but that every wanton and his para- from this time, when they were staging Edu:ard II and such contributions mour. every knave and his quean, are there first acquainted and as he had made to other histories, his dedi- cation cheapen the mer&andise in that plae, which they pay for elsewhere of Sfatson's poem ro Lady Sidney, though it was in payment of as they can agtee.
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