74;Iff"TN':T Death"

ommenting on J. Leslie Hotson's 1925 discovery of the coroner's inquest into 's deathl, Professor G. \-,L. Kittredge wrote: "The mystery of Marlowe's death, heretofore involved in a cloud of contradictory gossip and irres_ponsible guess-work, is now cleared up for good and all on the authority of public records of complete authenticity and gratifying fullness." But Hotson's discovery has served only to increase the number of explanations for Marlowe's demise, and even gave rise to claims that Marlowe was not killed at all. As noted in the previous chapter , in answe_r to the May 18 summons by the Queen's Privy Councif made his appearance at the Star Chamber in Westminster two days later, Marlowe's name then disappears from the records until Wednesday, May 30 wher; according to a coroner's re- port, he was killed by one Ingram Ffizei at Deptford, near - Londorg in the home of Eleanor Bull, a widow. One would think that the Reverend Richard Harvey, the rector at Chislehurst, Ken! knew of Marlowe's arrest at the

226 Christopher Marlowe (156+-'1 607 ) 3 227 home of Thomas Walsingham in Scadbury, within his parish, and passed this juiry bit of gossip to his brother Gabriel, but neither Doctor Gabriel Harvey, nor any other of Marlowe's friends or enemies, discovered this fact. And as to Marlowe's manner of death, though the coroner's report lays it to a dag- ger wound, Gabriel Harvey had no doubt that Marlowe died of the plague. In 1597 Thomas Beard reported that

...in London streett as he [Marlowe] purposed to stab one whom he owed a grudge unto with his dagger, the other party perceiving so avoided the stroke that withal, catching hold of his wrist, he stabbed his own dagger into his own head in such sort, that notwithstanding all the means of surgery that could be wrought, he shortly after died thereof. The manner of his death being so terrible (for he even cursed and blas- phemed to his last gasp, and together with his breath an oath flew out of his mouth) that it was not only a manifest sign of God's judgmenq but also a horrible and fearful terror to all that beheld him.

In 1.598 Francis Meres in his one and only publicatiory Paladis Tamia, reported that

...Christopher Marlowe was stabbed to death by a bawdy serv- ingman" a rival of his in his lewd love.

In 1600 the play As You Like lt was listed as "a book to be stayed" in the Stationers'Register, that is, its publication was withheld and it first appeared in the 1.623 First Folio. In this play we leam a further detail about Marlowe's murder, namely, the size of the room in which Marlowe was mur- dered. The clown Touchstone, whom Calvin Hoffman identi- fies with Christopher Marlowe, unable to impress the simple shepherdess, Audrey, with his wit exclaims:

When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would the Gods had made thee poetical.

The official version of Marlowe's death in Leslie Hotson's translation of the coroner's report is as follows: 228 t Louis Ule

Kent. An inquisition taken at Deptford Strand in the afore- said County of Kent within the verge [i.e., within a twelve mile radius of the Queen and hence under jurisdictionl, on June 1, (1593)...in the presence of William Danby, Gentleman, Coroner of the household of her Majesty, the Queen, upon view of the body of Christopher Morley [Marlowe] there lying dead and slain, upon the oath of [sixteen named jurors] who say upon their oath that when a certain ,late of LondorL Gentlemarl and the aforesaid Christopher Morley and one , late of London, Gentleman, and Rob- ert Poley of Londorg aforesaid, Gentleman, on the thirtieth of May (1593) at Deptford Strand aforesaid in the said County of Kent within the verge, about the tenth hour before noon of the same day, met together in a room in the house of a certain Eleanor Bull, widow, and there passed the time together and dine4 and after dinner were in quiet sort together there, and walked in the garden belonging to the said house until the sixth hour after noon of the same day and then returned from the said garden to the room aforesaid and there together and in company supped; and after supper the said Ingram and Christopher Morley were in speech and uttered one to the other divers malicious words for the reason that they could not be at one nor agree about the payment of the sum of pence, that is "le reckoning," and the said Christopher Morley, then lying upon a bed in the room where they supped, and moved with anger against the said Ingram Ffizer upon the words as aforesaid spoken between them, and the said Ingram then and there sitting in the room aforesaid with his back towards the bed where the said Christopher Morley was then lying, sitting near the bed, ... with the front part of his body towards the table and the aforesaid Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley sit- ting on either side of the said Ingram in such a manner that the same Ingram Frizer in no wise could take flight: it so befell that the said Christopher Morley on a sudden and his malice towards the said Ingram aforethought, then and there mali- ciously drew the dagger of the said Ingram which was at his back and with the same dagger the said Christopher Morley then and there maliciously gave the aforesaid Ingram two wounds on his head of the length of two inches and of the depth of a quarter of an inch; whereupon the said Ingram, in fear of being slairu and sitting in the manner aforesaid between the said Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley so that he could Christopher Marlowe (1 564=L607 ) g 229

not in any wise get awayt in his own defense and for the saving of his life, then and there struggled with the said Christopher Morley to get back from him his dagger aforesaid; in which affuay the same Ingram could not get away from the said Christopher Marlowe; and so it befell in that afhay that the said Ingram, in defense of his life, with the dagger aforesaid of the value of 12 pence gave the said Christopher then and there a mortal wound over his right eye of the depth of two inches and of the width of one inch; of which mortal wound the aforesaid Christopher Marlowe then and there instantly died; and so the jurors aforesaid say upon their oath that the said Ingram killed and slew Christopher Morley aforesaid on the thirtieth day of May in the ... year named above at Deptford Strand aforesaid within the verge in the room aforesaid within the verge in the manner and form aforesaid in the defense and saving of his own life, against the peace of her Majesty the Queen ... and further, the said jurors say upon their oath that he said Ingram, after the slaying aforesaid perpetrated and done by him in the manner and form aforesaid, neither fled nor withdrew himself.

The coroner's report had been requested by the Queen in a writ which she witnessed in person on ]une 15th, a request al_sing_from the fact that Ingram Fizer, arrested for the kiiling of Marlowe, had petitioned the Queen for a pardon. The tenor of Danby's report is directed to meeting the legal require- ments for a pardon for killing in self defense. The petitioner for the pardon must be able to demonstrate that to save his own life he had no alternative but to kill his assailant and that he could not escape. Further, the petitioner must show his innocence by not leaving the scene bf the killing. Ingram Frizer received the expected pardon rather promptly on June 28. With regard to the_ three men present at Marlowe's killing and who testified at the coroner's inquest held two days later, two of them, Ingram Fizer and Niiholas Skeres, have been identified as relatively affluent gentlemen in the service of Thomas Walsingham, Marlowe's recent host. The third gen- tleman, even more affluent and influential, is Robert Poley of Shoreditctr, formerly agent provocateur in the service of Sir Francis Walsinghanu the beirayer of in the against the Queen and currently employed 230 g Louis Ule by the Vice-Chamberlairu Sir Thomas Heneage, as a court messenger. As late as L59L Poley was taking directions from Lord Burghley in his correspondence with the English spy, Michael Moody, in Antwerp, an operation that did not come under Robert Cecil's purview, but was continued under the Vice-Chamberlain. Robert Poley created a considerable num- ber of ciphers for correspondence between spies and the gov- ernment. English intelligence operations were not centralized, and Cecil, the Earl of Essex, and the Vice-Chamberlairy and perhaps others, each maintained separate organizations of varying size for this purpose. Robert Poley had elected not to seek employment under Sir Robert Cecil when the latter took over Wilsingham's'spy network, preferring rather to work for his father, Lord Burghley, for the reason that Poley's rival (in terms of achievements in secret operations) Mr. William Waad, was put in charge of Cecil's operations. Robert Cecil was not pleased that Poley, an agent of great experience and ability, *as not under his control and in 1592 he wrote Sir Thomas Heneage that "I have spoken with Poley and find him no fool." Only in 1598 after the death of Lord Burghley, did Poley seek employment with Cecil, but then Cecil would not have him. Briefly then, at the time of Marlowe's being killed at Deptford Robert Poley was not one of Cecil's agents nor at any time before or after. A quite original explanation {or Marlowe's killing in 1593 was proposed-by W. G. Zeig\er2 in 1895. Zeigler claimed that it wis Marlowe who killed Francis Frizer at Deptford and then adopted Frizer's identity, meanwhile writing the works of Shakespeare. Taking John Aubrey at his word Zeigler was inclined to believe that Marlowe in tum met his death at the hands of in 1598. With the publication of Leslie Hotson's discovery of the coroner's report in 1925, other explanations of Marlowe's death arose. Dr. Samuel Tannebaum claimed that Marlowe's murder was masterminded by Sir Walter Ralegtu who feared that Marlowe, upon being examined by the Privy Council, would tum infoimer. There were also theories to the effect that Marlowe was assassinated by government agents to spare the government the embarrassment of executing a great poet. - Zeifler's theory that Marlowe survived was revived in 1954 by Calvin Hoffman in his The Murder of the Man Who Was Christopher Marlowe (156+-1607 ) g 231

Shakespeare. Since that time, the views regarding Marlowe's death have narrowed down to essentially three: L. Those who claim that the coroner's report, whatever its other deficiencies might be, establishes beyond reasonable doubt that Marlowe was killed on May 30, 1593. The coroner's repor! dated at Deptford, June 1, 1593, is confirmed by the burial register at St. Nicholas, Deptford, which states that Christopher Marlowe was buried there that day. The evidence that Marlowe died in 1593 would prove that Marlowe could not have written the works of Shakespeare. 2. Those who believe that Marlowe died in 1593 but who attempt to resolve, in one manner or another, the totality of the contradictory evidence. Such have been Marlowe's biogra- phers, John Bakeless, Frederick Boas, and more recently. A. D. Wraight and Virginia F. Stern in their In Search of Christo- pher Marlowe. 3. In the last category are the followers of Zeigler and Hoff- man, who claim that the coroner's report is in error and that Marlowe survived to write the works attributed to Shake- speare. They argue that the probability that an official report of death has been falsified for political reasons is high com- pared to the probability that anyone but Marlowe could have written the works of Shakespeare, which are peculiarly like his own. The position taken in course of researching this biography is that if Marlowe did survive the year 1593, the probability is very high that his second identity can be discovered and his movements traced. The conviction that Marlowe's and Shakespeare's works appear to be the work of a single author then led to the search for this second identity. The coroner's inquest for all its seeming authenticity strains credulity at several points. 1. It i-s impossible to stab a man in the forehead to a depth of two inches with a dagger and such a wound, if inflicted, would not cause instant death. 2. It would be very difficult to inflict a scalp wounds two inches long and 1/4 inch deep with a dagger, as the report claims that Frizer received at the hands of Marlowe. 3. Ingram Frizer was a gentleman in the service of Thomas Walsingham reputed to be the patron and great friend of the the man that Frizer slew, yet immediately upon his release 232 g Louis Ule from prison on |une 28, 1593,Ingram Frizer is found in full favor of Walsingham, and continued so for many years. 4. Robert Poley, though named as one of those present at Marlowe's death in Deptford on May 30, 1593, is listed in another documenf as being elsewhere. This document reads:

To Robert Poley, upon a warrant signed by Mr. Vice-Cham- berlairu dated at the court the 22nd day of lune, 1593, for carrying of letters in post for her Majesty's special and secret affairs of great importance from the Court at Croydon, the 8th day of May 1.593, into the Low Countries to the town of the Hague in Holland, and for retuming back again with letters of answer to the Court at Nonesuch the 8th of June, 1593, being in her Majesty's service all the aforesaid time: [a payment of] thirty shillings.

The document appears to be an alibi drawn up to establish that Robert Poley had nothing to do with Marlowe's death (real or faked) at Deptford on May 30, L593. As Robert Cecil remarked to the Vice-Chamberlairy Robert Poley was no fool. And as Poley himself once said: "I will swear and forswear myself rather than I will accuse myself to do me any harm." It was Poley who drew up the above warrant and had it signed by his superior. And it was Poley whose social stand- ing, position of influence and impressive demeanor made him the principal witness at the coroner's inquest in Deptford on |une L, 1593. One reason why Poley might find it wise not to be associated with the Deptford affair is that the coroner's reporf which resulted largely from his swom testimony, might be proven false by Marlowe's subsequent reappear- ance. It is also likely that the payment to him of 30 shillings was for the conduci of secret affairs, among them arranging Marlowe's murder under the cover of being a Court mes- senSer. The real mystery surrounding Marlowe's death then is why. What was the compelling reason for its necessity? One explanation that is advanced are the accusations of atheism against Marlowe by the Reverend Richard Baines. However, the Reverend Baines, since 1.597 the rector of Waltham in Lin- colnshire as a reward for his spying in the Catholic seminary at Rheims, did not deliver his accusations against Marlowe Christopher Marlowe (L564-1 607 ) g 233

to the Privy Council until Sunday May 27, aweekafter Mar- lowe had made his appearance. To conclude then that Mar- lowe was summoned by the Privy Council because of the Baines note is to put the cart before the horse. Anotber explanation is that the govemment, after parsons, recent charges that it would soon ibandon all religion, could not be seen to condone the views of an avowed itheist like Christopher Marlowe. Lacking the desire to take the life of an otherwise loyal subject, itiought fit to have it reported that he was killed. It is also possible that the goverunent, having employed Marlowe as an agent provocat-eur against Catholiis anit pirri- tans, arrested him (as other spies were'arrested') as a means both of debriefing him and tb create the impression that he was a -not goveffunent agent. Robert Poley and other spies had been similarly arrested in the Babingtoh plot and held in grloqy for several years_to protect them from the revenge of Catholics.- Fearing that the Catholics were no longer bling deceived by such tactics Marlowe, in a ruse to privent hii own assassination bythose on whom he had infolmed, may ha_ve arranged instead for his staged death at Deptford. We know nothing of Marlowe'i movements fr6m the time he first presented himself at the Star Chamber in Westminster and his reported death ten days later at Deptford. Lr the in- le_rim 1\9l.ir.y. Council met in the Star Chamber on May 23, 25 and 29but there is no record in the Privy Council register of Marlowe having a-ppe_ared. We do learn that though the Privy Council knew that he was to be found at "the house of Mr. Thomas Walsingham in {"nt," M_arlo,we in reporting gave London as his place of residence. When he was no longer required to_ "attend on their Lordships" he very likely re- turned to Thomas Walsingham's residence in Scailbury kent. From lhenge early on the-morning of May 3Q Marlowe and two- o! Walsingham's gentlemen sdrvants, ingram Frasier and Nic-holas Skeres, rodelhe seven miles to the*home of Eleanor Bull at Deptford, near Greenwich, there to meet with Robert Poley at ten o'clock. Robert Po-ley lived in Shoreditch just north of London. His meeting with Marlowe and two of Walsingham's gentlemen at the home of Eleanor Bull must have blen pre--arranged. There the four gentlemen spent some time together in a r6om in her house, dined about noon and " aftet dinner were in 234 g Louis Ule quiet sort together there and walked in the garden belonging tb the said h-ouse until the sixth hour after noon of the same day and then retumed from the said garden to the room afore- said and there together and in company supped." The impres- sion given is thit after the initial exchange of pleasantries, dinne-r, and the clearing of the table by the servants they set- tled down to the business at hand, i.e', "were in a quiet sort to- gether." - These gentlemen had serious matters to discuss and lest they be overheard by members of the household they decided to io out in the girden where they could conveise out of earlhot. This consultation continued for some four or five hours at least. Working out a scenario for Marlowe's murder was not an easy task and there were all sorts of problems,,for example, who would be the fall guy and take responsibility for Mirlowe's death. Nor can we assume that Marlowe was a willins planner in his own death, even if faked, to lose thereby Xll'hop" of advancement. Perhaps Marlowe had to be convinced of ils necessity by false friends "Pooley and Parrot" as might be inferred from Ben )onson's epigram lnaiting a Frienf,to Supper, (quoted in Chapter L8). The Privy Couniil was certainly implicated in these machi- nations, for Robert Poley would never allow himself to be involved in such a shady operation without the direction or at least the connivance of his superiors' Professor William Ut# has uncovered yet another link to thePrivy Council in the person of Eleanoi Bull, the widow in whose'house Mar- lowe was reportedly kilted. The records show that Eleanor Bull was a respectable woman who received €100 in the will of Blanche Pairy, a cousin or close relative to Lord Burghley and a gentlewoman to Queen Elizabeth. It was Lord Burghley himseft who prepared Blanche Parry's will. In this will Mrs' Bull is called-"cousir1" and in the prerogative court copy of the will she is called "my cousin Eleanor Bull." It would ap- pear then that Mrs. Bull was known to Lord Burghley and he mav have arranged for the delicate matter of Marlowe's death to iake place at"her house, away from London and, what is perhapimore significant, in sight of Greenwich Palace where the gueen and her court were staying. Since the Queert's co,ro- ner, Wi[iam Danby, held jurisdiction within the verge, that is within a radius of twelve miles of the court, not only would he be able to hold the inquest, he would also be close at hand Christopher Marlowe (1564-'1 607 ) en5 to exercise his authority before any local official could in- tervene. The plotters left no detail to chance. This appears especially in the wording of the coroner's report which is contrived with but one purpose in mind, and that is to meet the legal require- ments for obtaining a pardon for one accused of a murder committed in self defense. In particular the murder victim, in this case Marlowe, must have physically threatened the life of the accused. Nexf the man accused of the murder must have been unable to avoid being killed by flight or by any means other than by killing his assailant. For security reasons the number of persons inirolved in Marlowe's murder was also kept to the absolute minimum required for a plea in self- defense: the murderer, the victim and two witnesses. Though the coroner's report makes it clear that Marlowe attacked Ingram Frizer firsl the reason given is rather lame: Ingram Frizer and Christopher Marlowe "could not be at one nor agree about the payment of the sum of pence, that is, the reckoning." Especially laughable is the grouping of bed, table, bench and the four gentlemen as was demonstrated by Judith Cooks at her reenactment of Marlowe's murder at Stratford- on-Avon in 1986. Frizer could not move forward because he was sitting at the table, nor to either side, sitting as he was between Robert Poley and Nicholas Skeres. Nor could he back out because he was SitUng "near the bed" on which Christo- pher Morley was then lying, facing the table. To make this last point very clear the coroner's-report repeats the Latin phrase "ptopd lecfum" in English as "near the bed." The sio- irifi.urr.u'of ihe bed is allude? to the the play, The Mercha\t of Venice where Lancelot (i.e., Marlowe) confides to his shoe- riraker father Gobbo (i.e., John Marlowe) four instances of how he barely escaped death:

And then to escape drowning thrice, and to be in peril of my life with the edge of a feather-bed; here are simple escapes.

Marlowe's killing is said to have taken place after supper which was served at about six o'clock. According to the coro- ner's report "...Ingram, in defense of his life, with the dagger aforesaid of the value of 12d. gave the said Christopher a mortal wound over his right eye of the depth of two inches and of the width of one incht of which mortal wound the aforesaid Christopher Morley then and there instantly died." 236 e Louis UIe

The inquest into Marlowe's death took place two days later on Iune 1 and he was buried that same day. Sixteen jurors viewed the body and if the murder, though-not the inquest, were a hoax, we have no evidence of how that mightharre been arranged. The great mystery that remains is just why was it necessary for Marlowe to die or, if he was still alive, to make it appear that he had been killed. In unraveling the activities of any intelligence service we may be faced with what is known as a cover. In keeping vital secrets from the enemy such services unavoidably mislead and confuse historians. If a piece of information is highly sen- sitive its dissemination must be restricted to as few persons as possible and it could never be put to paper. Information is especially sensitive if someone's life would be endangered by its disclosure. This is almost always true for a spy *ho r,vill receive no mercy from the enemy once he is discovered. Even though historians agree,that Marlowe may have been a spy, previous inquiries into the reasons for Marlowe's death hive overlooked this possibility as a factor. Recall that in Chapter VIII Christopher Marlowe and two other prisoners were- sent under guard by Sir Robert Sidney, the govemor of Flushing, to Lord Burghiey in London to be tried.,Christopher Marlowe and Gilbert Gifford, the prisoners, and the Reverend Richard Baines, the informer, had shared a chamber together. Baines had accused his two companions of coining money and Christopher Marlowe of being a Catholic. Although Gilbert Gifford is described as a goldsmith and an excellent workman he was in fact a spy well known to the govemnenf having created the cipheri that were used to foil the Babington plot. Richard Baines, the accuser, was himself another goveffunent spy, an apostate seminary priest' who had been at the English College at Rheims, where he had threatened to betray his fellow Catholic seminarians. What may not beio obvious about Sir Robert Sidney's letter is that like Marlowe's murder, it is also ingeniously contrived, this time to whisk Marlowe from Flushing, wher-e he was in danger of his life to the safety of London. First Marlowe is accused by Baines of being a Catholic and this could only have one purpose, namely, to mislead the Catholics as to Mar- lowe's true loyalty. Then Marlowe is arrested for coining money and sent to England under guard, this to prevent the Catholics from intercepting his passage. Christopher Marlowe (1.564-1 607 ) g 237

Now, just why was Marlowe's life in danger? Recall that a few months before being arrested in Flushing, Marlowe had been in Brussels, then under control of Catholic Spain, where his host, Charles Pagef a leader of the exile Calholics, had intercepted a letter from a Master Nowell to Marlowe in which he "discovered enough to have hanged him [Mar- lowe]." It was only by "showing with tears great repentance and asking on his knees forgiveness," that Marlowe was able to save his life, at least temporarily. Master Nowell may have been the Reverend Alexander Nowell, the elderly and learned dean of St. Paul's Cathedral and Paget could not be sure of Marlowe's innocence. He then and there wrote a long letter to Thomas Barnes, his contact in London. Barnes himself was a double agent loyal to the Queen and, incidentally, cousin to the spy Gilbert Gifford, the so-called goldsmith, who had previously demonstrated his skill in metals by devising the beer-barrel post that foiled the Babington plot. In this letter to Bames Paget asked:

There is a Morley that playeth the organies in Paul's that was with me in my house... I hear since his coming thither he hath played the promoter and apprehended Catholics. I pray you advertise me thereof.

The letter to Bames also upbraided him for failing to pro- vide any useful intelligence in previous correspondence and wamed that his pension from the King of Spain would be withdrawn unless he did. Bames, of course, fumed Paget's letter over to his superior, Sir Thomas Phelippes, who passed it on to Lord Burghley. Burghley was not happy with the prospect of losing a vital pipeline into the activities of the English Catholics on the continent and Phelippes then drafted a reply that Bames was to send to Paget. Among the bits of "intelligence" that Phelippes directed Barnes to transmit to Paget was the following.

It is true that Morley the singing man employs himself in that kind of service he [Paget] writeth and hath brought divers into danger.

It was one of several bits of information to lull Paget into believing that Barnes was really working for the Catholics.