Marlowe – The Marlowe Society

A PORTRAIT OF MARLOWE?

Marlowe’s inspired imagery, see also:

Marigold Emblem
The Marlowe Memorial

This portrait may be of Christopher Marlowe. It was discovered at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1952 and required extensive restoration work.

The age of the sitter and date of the portrait as inscribed in the top-left corner are generally thought to match Marlowe, who was born in February 1564, and who attended the College between 1580 to 1587. The inscription reads ANNO DNI AETATIS SVAE 21 1585, one translation of which is “Aged 21 in 1585”.

Beneath this is inscribed the motto, QVOD ME NVTRIT ME DESTRVIT, which translates from the Latin as “that which nourishes me destroys me”.

Read more about the life and times of Christopher Marlowe, his plays and poetry, and how others have viewed him and his work. Also find out about the the eventful history of his Memorial in Canterbury.

The 1585 portrait discovered at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1952, may be of the 21-year-old Christopher Marlowe.

Marlowe's Birth

Baptism at St. George the Martyr

Christopher Marlowe was baptised at the church of St. George the Martyr, Canterbury, on Saturday 26 February, 1564. His exact date of birth is not recorded, but Elizabethan children were commonly baptised very shortly after birth to ensure entry into heaven in the event of an early death – not uncommon, given the infant mortality rates of the time. Indeed, Christopher may have been lucky to survive himself, for Canterbury experienced high rates of mortality due to a concerted outbreak of plague between 1563 and 1565¹.

Canterbury was a small city at the time of Marlowe’s birth, dominated as it is today by the cathedral. A survey in 1563 recorded 700 households, whilst a similar exercise five years later extrapolates to approximately 900 households and a population of 2,341 people above adolescent age². St. George’s church was situated near to St. George’s Gate (or Newingate) on the east side of the walled city. The church housed the great waking bell for the whole city, which was rung at 4am each morning. By 1569, the parish of St. George contained 208 communicants³.

Opposite the church on the other side of St. George’s Street, the house that was located on the corner of St. George’s Lane is thought to be that inhabited by the Marlowe family when Christopher was born. Marlowe’s father, John, was a shoemaker by trade and his shop was also located in the parish. The house was unfortunately destroyed by Luftwaffe bombs during the Second World War, and the site is now occupied by Fenwick’s department store. The Marlowe Society is currently trying to organise some kind of memorial to mark the site, and is in discussion with Fenwick’s owners.

St. George’s Church fared only a little better against the German air bombardment, and was largely destroyed by fire during the same air-raid on 01 June 1942. The clock stopped at 02:18 am⁴, and the bells (dating from the 17th century, and at least one that had survived from Marlowe’s time) fell to the ground and subsequently ‘disappeared’. Much of the church building was demolished, but although the spire had been lost, the surviving church tower was protected with scaffolding and eventually restored after the war.

The clock tower of St. George’s Church, Canterbury where Marlowe was baptised is all that survived a German air raid in 1942. The original clock dials (dating from 1825) were restored in 1955.

His Parents

John Marlowe, was born in the village of Ospringe, very close to Faversham, some nine miles west of Canterbury. There is conflicting evidence regarding his age, legal documents from later in his life putting his date of birth variously between 1536 and 1543. The earliest date seems the most likely⁵, the same year incidentally that Faversham Abbey was granted to Sir Thomas Culpepper as part of the Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries.

John Marlowe was also likely to have still been living locally at the time of Thomas Arden’s murder, instigated by his wife Alice in 1551. This was the notorious case chronicled by Raphael Holinshed, and which would provide the plot and characters for the anonymous play Arden of Faversham written approximately forty years after the event. The geographical proximity, as well as certain matters of style, have led some to suggest Christopher Marlowe as the play’s author.

It seems probable that Marlowe’s father moved to Canterbury around the age of twenty, during the reign of Queen Mary. At some point during the financial year beginning Michaelmas (29 September) 1559, John Marlowe became apprenticed to a shoemaker named Gerard Richardson. It is possible that he had already begun learning the cobbler’s trade, either in Faversham or Canterbury, for John became a freeman of Canterbury shortly after Christopher’s birth, in April 1564, and an apprenticeship of just four years would be unusually short⁶.

Legal records from 1566 suggest John Marlowe had lived in St. George’s parish since 1561-2, around the time of his wedding to Katherine Arthur at St. George’s Church on 22 May 1561. Katherine was born and raised in the port of Dover on the south coast of Kent, some 18 miles from Canterbury. Her father William was not recorded as having a trade when he died in 1575⁷, suggesting the family was far from wealthy, and possibly explaining why the wedding, somewhat unusually, did not take place in the bride’s native town. John and Katherine Marlowe went on to have nine children, six of whom survived into adulthood, during a marriage that would last nearly 44 years until death did them part in 1605.

St. George’s Church, Canterbury, before it was largely destroyed by German bombs in 1942. It is believed that the Marlowes lived in the house on the opposite side of St George’s Street for the first ten years or so of his life.

His Father’s Career

Despite taking on some five different apprentices between 1567 and 1593, John Marlowe did not appear a particularly adept businessman, and actions relating to debt were regularly brought against him. This did not stop him being elected as warden and treasurer of the Shoemakers’ Company in 1589, but at the end of his year in office a shortfall of over 40 shillings was found. The company seemed reluctant to take legal action, but a case was finally entered on 27 January 1592. By a curious coincidence, both father and son thus simultaneously found themselves in deep water, with Christopher most likely on that very day sailing on a ship back from Flushing to England, extradited along with his nemesis Richard Baines on a charge of “coining” (counterfeiting) a Dutch shilling (Sir Robert Sidney’s covering note to Lord Burghley being dated the previous day). Both appeared to have escaped serious punishment, however, with Marlowe Sr. somehow managing to pay off this sizable debt by the end of the year.

John Marlowe appears as both plaintiff and defendant in at least 17 other cases in the Canterbury borough pleas book during the 1570’s, 80’s and 90’s⁸, hinting at a vigorous character even in such a litigious age. But he was well enough thought of to hold various positions of responsibility in the Shoemaker’s Company, and was appointed as a Searcher (inspector of leather) in 1581-2. Marlowe acted as Sidesman (responsible for greeting the congregation and organising seating in the church) at St. George’s in 1573, and as Churchwarden in the parish of St. Mary Breadman between 1591 and 1594, where the family then resided. For some of this period he was also constable of Westgate (1591-2), and may have been somewhat embarrassed at having to find surety for his son Christopher, accussed by one William Corkine of an attacking him with “staff and dagger” in Mercery Lane, Canterbury on 15 September 1592.

Christopher Marlowe’s father had basic literacy, able to sign his own name and write a few words. His signature regularly confirms him as witness or bondsman on legal documents, most notably on the will of Katherine Benchkin (dated 19 August 1585, just above the only extant signature of his 21 year old son Christopher. William Urry’s dedicated research has thus identified John Marlowe’s documented involvement in all kinds of activities throughout his life in Canterbury. What such historical records cannot show, of course, are John and Katherine’s reaction to the alleged murder of their son in 1593.

The photo above shows the house on the corner of St. George’s Street and St. George’s Lane, believed to be where the Marlowes lived for the early years of Christopher’s life. It was destroyed in a German air raid in 1942.

Christopher Marlowe’s parents survived a further twelve years after the events in Deptford. His father John died first at the probable age of 68 or 69, making his will on 25 January 1605 and being buried in the churchyard of St. George’s the following day. For all his apparent financial difficulties, an inventory of his goods following his death provided evidence of a, if not prosperous, then at least modestly comfortable life. Katherine Marlowe did not outlive her husband by long. Her will is dated 17 March 1605 and she was buried the next day, not seemingly alongside her husband, for her burial is recorded in the register at All Saints Church.

His Family

Christopher Marlowe was the second of nine children born to John and Katherine Marlowe between 1562 and 1576. At the age of 4, his elder sister Mary died leaving

Christopher as the eldest surviving child. Within two months of Mary’s death, a brother whose name is not recorded died just days after being baptised. Another brother, Thomas, who was born two years later in 1570, survived just two weeks. The Marlowes’ only other son was their last recorded child, baptised in April 1576. There is no record of this second Thomas’ death, either in infancy or later in life, but he was not mentioned in his mother’s will of 1605.

Marlowe’s early years in their house on the corner of St. George’s Lane would thus have found him surrounded solely by his sisters. Both Margaret (18 months his junior) and Anne (7 years younger) would go on to enjoy very long lives (living to 76 and 81 respectively), whilst his youngest sister Dorothy at least outlived her first husband, who died when she was 52. Interestingly, Anne’s wedding to John Cranford took place on 10 June 1593, just 11 days after her brother’s alleged murder in Deptford. Christopher’s other sister Jane (5½ years younger) was married at the age of just 12, and even more shockingly to modern sensibilities, appears to have died in child-birth the following year.

All of Marlowe’s siblings were born by the time he departed for Cambridge University in December 1580. He was twelve when his only surviving brother was born, and it seems unlikely that the two boys can have been that close, for the second Thomas would have been just 4 when his older brother took up residence at Corpus Christi College.

Marlowe’s Education

Early Years, Canterbury

Christopher Marlowe was the son of a Canterbury shoemaker, born in the same artisan class and in the same year (1564) as William Shakespeare.

His exceptional gifts were recognised when a boy and he gained a scholarship to the prestigious King’s School. This was the ancient choir school administered by the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral and whose Statutes provided education for ‘fifty boys both destitute of the help of friends and endowed with minds apt for learning’.

In fact it was the Kentish gentry who snapped up the coveted places for their sons, and a poor man’s son, though he had ‘a mind apt for learning’, only gained a place when a vacancy occurred. Those waiting for such a vacancy would necessarily have been among the ten fee-paying special choristers who were taught with the King’s scholars and dined at their table.

Young Marlowe was evidently one of these, his fees probably being paid by the local philanthropist, Sir Roger Manwood. The latter was a friend of Dr. John Parker, son of Archbishop Parker, who administered the scholarship awards. On Sir Roger’s death in 1592 Marlowe wrote a Latin elegy in his memory.

The long-awaited vacancy for a scholarship did not occur until he was fourteen, almost at the upper age limit of the choir school which ranged from nine to fifteen.

The sketch of Canterbury Cathedral is by local artist Nicky Browne.

King’s School, Canterbury

Educational philanthropy was very popular in Elizabeth’s reign, for education was highly prized and eagerly sought, the Queen herself setting an example of daily application to learning.

At King’s, Marlowe received a rigorous education rated as the best available in his day. The school day began at 6am with a Psalm and Litany, and ended at 5pm with a Psalm, a Litany and a prayer. Then there was ‘prep’ to be done between 6 and 7pm in which the day’s lessons were memorised and the brighter boys helped the slower ones.

Besides instruction in Religion and Music, for they sang Mass in the Cathedral every morning, they were thoroughly grounded in Latin grammar and ‘becoming practised in the classical poetic tales and familiar with the Letters of learned men of Latin and Greek literature’, and as they progressed were led ‘to taste Horace and Cicero‘. Both ancient and modern history were taught and boys were encouraged to compose Latin poetry, and regularly performed plays in Latin and Greek, sometimes lavishly ‘furnished’ (i.e. with costumes and props). The boys were supposed to speak only in Latin even when at play. They wore long gowns and were provided with a new gown every Christmas.

Once he had gained his scholarship, through which his education was funded by the Church, Marlowe became eligible for the next stage in his education, and at the age of sixteen and a half was awarded a second scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. For this he was required to compose a Latin verse and to sing plain-song at sight and to demonstrate his mastery of Latin syntax and grammar.

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

At Corpus Christi he spent time in self-set tasks of Latin translations from Lucan’s De Bello Civili into English blank verse and Ovid’s Amores into rhyming couplets, such as he used later in Hero and Leander. In this we see him honing his poetic skills to emerge as England’s greatest poet-dramatist, the virtual creator of Shakespearean blank verse drama, for he also began to write his first plays, probably from the age of eighteen.

Marlowe’s first full-length play (now lost) is believed to be The True History of George Scanderbeg based on the life of a heroic Christian Prince of Albania, Prince Castrioto, who was abducted as a child by the conquering Turks and renamed Scanderbeg. He developed outstanding prowess at arms and became a favourite of the Turkish emperor who gave him charge of his armies. Learning of his true origin he converted to Christianity and fled to his own country, freeing it from Turkish rule and leading his people in victorious opposition to the Turkish enemy. He was a man of pristine valour who taught his soldiers to respect women, forbidding them to rape their victims in war.

Marlowe gained his BA in 1584 to become ‘Dominus’ Marlowe, and gained his MA – a coveted status symbol in Elizabethan times – in 1587, when he left Cambridge after six and a half years of study with the intention of taking holy orders and entering the Anglican Church, as required by his scholarship. However he left this path to enter the Queen’s service as a trusted government agent.

At Cambridge he is thought by some historians to have written the lyrical drama Dido, Queen of Carthage based on Virgil’s epic poem, in addition to his Tamburlaine the Great with which he was to take London’s theatre world by storm! Its premier marked the birth of Shakespearean drama.

Marlowe had been writing poetry and performing plays ever since his King’s School days. His education fashioned him to become the innovative genius who first conceived and created Shakespearean blank verse drama. This is why Tennyson hailed him as “The Morning Star” of the great dramatic flowering of Elizabethan England.

The Free Thinkers

Marlowe & The School of Night

Marlowe was a child of the English Renaissance and the Reformation, which was also that troubled period called by the great scholar Dame Frances Yates, “the false dawn of the Enlightenment”, which was doomed to suppression and delay. He shared his birth year, 1564, with Galileo (and with Shakespeare, but that fact is never mentioned by the Shakespearean academic authors). It was a dangerous time in which to express an eager interest in the new scientific discoveries that were exciting the minds of intellectuals all over Europe. In England Sir Walter Raleigh and the young (9th) Earl of Northumberland, Henry Percy (also born in 1564), led a group of intellectuals, a select band of advanced thinking noblemen, courtiers and educated commoners, including mathematicians, astronomers, voyagers who had explored the New World, geographers, philosophers and poets. They formed an esoteric club nicknamed “The School of Night” which met secretly to discuss this forbidden knowledge, always ‘behind closed doors’. Marlowe became a member of this close circle, who were called Free-Thinkers and were all stigmatised as “Atheists” in order to blacken them in the eyes of the ignorant.

The Ecclesiastical Authorities feared the spread of interest in scientific discovery which was displacing the geocentric concept of Ptolemy, who lived in the second century AD, holding that the static Earth was the centre of the Universe around which the Sun orbits daily. Church dogma upheld this earth-centred view citing Holy Scripture as ‘proof ‘. When the great Polish mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus developed his heliocentric concept of the Universe he did not dare to publish his book describing this hypothesis, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, until his death in 1543. It was Galileo’s persistent promotion of Copernicanism that brought the Holy Roman Inquisition finally to the decision that he would have to be silenced.

A most important member of Sir Walter Raleigh’s circle was the advanced thinker, brilliant mathematician and astronomer, Thomas Hariot. He was in the patronage of both Raleigh and the Earl of Northumberland, the latter nicknamed the “Wizard Earl” for his love of experimenting with chemistry for which he had laboratories built into all his houses.

Hariot, who has been called “the greatest scientific mind before Newton”, was in secret correspondence with Johannes Kepler, who discovered that the orbits of the planets were not circular but eliptical. Hariot was Marlowe’s friend in this circle, with whom he was often seen browsing at the bookstalls in St Paul’s churchyard. These Free Thinkers discussed a wide range of subjects and were avid in their pursuit of all knowledge. Such men, in the eyes of the church, were dangerous. The Earl of Northumberland had at an early age dedicated his life to the pursuit of knowledge. He was eventually imprisoned in the Tower of London by King James I for almost sixteen years on a false charge of involvement in the Gunpowder Plot, just as Sir Walter Raleigh was falsely charged, also by King James, with conspiring with the Spaniards. In fact, King James had a paranoid fear of these brilliant men because he suspected them of exercising magical powers, which the superstitious King held in terror. Both were accused of the “vile heresy” of Atheism. It was this that was also the cause of Marlowe’s tragedy.

Kyd’s Accusations

The prelude to Marlowe’s arrest in 1593 on a charge of “Atheism” was the incidence of riots by the London apprentices against the Huguenot settlers whom they saw as threatening their livelihoods with their skilful trades. The quelling of riots was in the legal province of the Court of the Star Chamber, the dreaded higher court which also dealt with matters of heresy and was the English equivalent of the Holy Roman Inquisition. It was the only court empowered to use torture to obtain confessions, and operated without a jury. It represented the all-powerful legal arm of the most reactionary elements of Church and State.

Officers of the Star Chamber searched the rooms of Marlowe’s fellow dramatist, Thomas Kyd, who had been involved in writing the collaborative play Sir Thomas More (lately rejected by the censor because it contained scenes of riots considered to be inciting), and among Kyd’s papers they found incriminating evidence in the form of a treatise discussing the Holy Trinity which was immediately labelled as “Atheism”. Poor Kyd was hauled off to prison to be put on the rack in a process known as “scraping the conscience”. Under torture he stuck to his original claim of innocence and stated that this paper belonged to Marlowe, who had been writing in the same room with him and had left it there accidentally, and had become “shuffled” with Kyd’s own papers “unbeknown to him.”⁹

Kyd was released, a broken man (he died a year later), and clearly was embittered and vengeful, as seen in his poison-pen letters to Lord Puckering desperately trying to clear himself of the fatal taint of “Atheism,” which had led to his dismissal from the patronage of his former lord and master, the Earl of Sussex, and left him destitute. In pleading his case for exoneration from this charge, he presents his own innocence and blackens the reputation of Marlowe by contrasting their characters in a completely unjustified manner.

Kyd was by then aware of the murder of his former friend, Christopher Marlowe, at Deptford in a base quarrel with his patron’s servant, whom (according to the story that the Deptford jurymen no doubt told with relish in the taverns) Marlowe had attacked from behind with the servant’s own dagger. Kyd makes full use of this information, calling Marlowe a man who was “intemperate and of a cruel heart, the very contraries to which my greatest enemies will say by me” (Kyd’s syntax is a little confused here). We may excuse him for he had suffered on the rack thanks to Marlowe’s supposed carelessness with his papers and by then Marlowe was considered to be dead so could not defend his reputation.

Character Assassination

Kyd’s assessment of Marlowe’s character has been accepted by most scholars, who see it as confirmation of the malignant report of the Star Chamber informer, Richard Baines; yet we know from considerable documentary evidence that the statements of informers are the last pieces of evidence to be trusted. Over the centuries their stock-in-trade has hardly changed, specialising in false accusations of blasphemy and especially sexual depravity of every kind, including buggery (even with animals as charged against Mohammed by Christian accusers in the 16th century), sodomy, incest and pederasty (charges also brought against the Jews by the Gestapo).

Marlowe, in common with such great men as Solzhenitsyn, was the victim of a police state, and the charges of Baines and Kyd (who may in part be reflecting what had been impressed on his mind by torture) are as much to be believed as the charges made by the Gestapo and the KGB.

The charges are quite clearly lies, and in Marlowe’s case they are contradicted by all that his friends and admirers said of him, calling him “the Muse’s darling”, “the man that hath been dear unto us”, “that pure elemental wit, Christopher Marlowe”, “kind Kit Marlowe”, and even from his envious rivals, “Thou famous gracer of Tragedians”, acknowledging him as England’s premier poet-dramatist in 1592, just before the tragedy at Deptford overwhelmed his reputation.

It is the policy of the Marlowe Society to work towards lifting this cloud of infamy from his unjustly blemished name and restoring Christopher Marlowe to the position of honour his genius deserves. After four hundred years it is time that credit is given where it is due.

Raleigh led the group of Free-Thinkers nicknamed ‘The School of Night’, that included Marlowe, Thomas Hariot, and the ‘Wizard Earl’, Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland.

Government agent

Political Landscape in the 1580s

Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth’s chief minister who, together with her Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham, was said to rule the land with the Queen as the Head of all, was also Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. As such he used the University as his recruiting ground to enlist bright, patriotic young men to serve as secret agents. Evidently Marlowe was picked out for this service, which was vitally important, in this age of of Catholic versus Protestant political intrigue, an age of political assassinations, directed against the Heads of States.

In 1584, William the Silent, Prince of Orange, leader of the Protestants in the Netherlands, was assassinated following a failed attempt in 1582. In 1589 King Henri III of France, a Catholic who had flirted with Queen Elizabeth and also patronized Giordano Bruno whom the Holy Roman Inquisition burned at the stake in 1600, was assassinated with the poisoned dagger of a Jacobin friar. His brother, Charles IX, had also been poisoned. In 1610 the next King of France, Henri IV, the former champion of the Huguenots, who embraced Catholicism on ascending the throne with the words ‘Paris is worth a Mass’, met his death at the point of a dagger also.

The Catholic plots against Queen Elizabeth were ceaseless, but all were uncovered one after another by the English Secret Service, skilfully built up under the direction of Sir Francis Walsingham to become the greatest and most successful espionage network of the time, with agents placed as far away as Turkey to cover every exigency. It was entirely thanks to the efficiency and dedication of Walsingham’s Secret Service that Queen Elizabeth led such a charmed life and escaped assassination.

Good Service & Rheims

Marlowe’s first important assignment as a secret agent was probably in 1584/5, after he had successfully gained his BA (a hurdle many students evaded or failed), and when his normally constant residence at his college was suddenly interrupted by lengthy absences. We have the invaluable records of the college buttery and audit books to confirm this. The weekly one shilling stipend for the purchase of extra food and drink at the buttery bar was not collected, and the Audit book records all presences and absences term by term, covering also the vacations, for the students were required to remain at college all year except for the summer vacation.

Contemporaneous with Marlowe’s absences was the plotting of the most dangerous conspiracy yet hatched, the Babington Plot, which was conceived at the Catholic Seminary at Rheims run by Cardinal Allen. Students who were not Catholics were also admitted there, probably in the hope of converting them, and the rumour spread at Cambridge that Christopher Marlowe had gone to Rheims as a Catholic convert. When this reached the ears of the Cambridge authorities they decided to withhold permission for him to receive his MA degree. In dismay it appears that Marlowe appealed to the Privy Council to intervene and clear his name, which they did, and handsomely, in the following letter¹⁰ dated 29 June 1587:

“Whereas it was reported that Christopher Marlowe was determined to have gone beyond the seas to Rheims, and there to remain, their Lordships thought good to certify that he had no such intent, but that in all his actions he had behaved himself orderly and discreetly, whereby he had done Her Majesty good service, & deserved to be rewarded for his faithful dealing. Their Lordships’ request was that the rumour thereof should be allayed by all possible means, and that he should be furthered in the degree he was to take this next Commencement, because it was not Her Majesty’s pleasure that anyone employed, as he had been, in matters touching the benefit of his country, should be defamed by those that are ignorant in th’ affairs he went about.”

The letter is signed by:-

Lord Archbishop (of Canterbury), John Whitgift;
The Lord Treasurer, Lord Burghley;
The Lord Chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton;
The Lord Chamberlain, Henry Carey, 1st Lord Hunsdon;
Mr. Comptroller, Sir James Croft.

The Queen is mentioned twice, citing her personal interest in this young man’s attainment of his MA without hindrance from the authorities who are “ignorant of th’ affairs he went about,” and testifies that he had done good service and “deserved to be rewarded for his faithful dealing”. This letter is unique in the annals of Elizabethan espionage records.

Debating Marlowe’s Espionage Role

Marlowe had clearly been engaged in an important assignment for the Government and had acquitted himself worthily, and all the evidence of the circumstances strongly suggests that it was in connection with the uncovering of the Babington Plot, which aimed directly at the assassination of Queen Elizabeth and her chief ministers and purposed the enthronement of Mary Queen of Scots as England’s Catholic Queen. It was the most daring and dangerous plot conceived to date over which Mendoza, the Spanish Ambassador in Paris, was rubbing his hands with glee!

However, Charles Nicholl, author of The Reckoning¹¹, claims that Marlowe never went to Rheims at all. Yet since the letter states that he did not intend “there to remain”, obviously he must have been there!

Nicholl claims that Marlowe’s government employment was to do some ‘snooping’ on his fellow students at Cambridge to find any who were harbouring Catholic Sympathies which might lead them to defect to Rheims and there indulge in plotting with Elizabeth’s enemies. That is what he claims constituted “matters touching the benefit of his country”, which drew from the Privy Council their letter of commendation and praise from Her Majesty! This does not make sense as ‘snooping’ and would not justify his well- documented absence from Cambridge.

Several other scholars, less hostile than Nicholl, find it difficult to accept that Marlowe was the discreet, well-behaved, patriotic young man described in the Privy Council’s letter of commendation, to whom an important task “touching the benefit of the country” had been entrusted.

Part of the English Jesuit College at Rheims still exists behind this 17th century façade. William Allen established the seminary here after a similar college at Douai was forced to close in 1578. Richard Baines enrolled that same year, but was imprisoned in May 1582 for being an under-cover English agent. Amongst other allegations was a plot by Baines to inject poison into the college well. The Privy Council’s letter to the Cambridge University authorities in June 1587 mentions that “it was reported that Christopher Marlowe was determined to have gone beyond the seas to Rheims, and there to remain.

The English Agent in Paris

Marlowe made his mark with the Queen and her Government at the age of twenty, and he emerged as the new poet-dramatist of genius, “the Muse’s Darling”, at the age of twenty-three when he arrived in London. He was to continue his career in the Queen’s service as a highly trusted secret agent, as we now know from further significant research published during 1996.

This career brought Marlowe into close contact with the Elizabethan court and gave him also first-hand insight into the political scene in some of the major courts of Europe. This is reflected in his political play about the turmoil in France, The Massacre at Paris, which has regrettably survived only in a mutilated edition of what must have been a great contemporary historical drama. Even in its much abbreviated form it is still worth performing.

Here is the speech spoken by the dying King Henri III of France after he has been stabbed by the Jacobin Friar who gained access to the king under the pretence of delivering a letter.

The English Agent, who has no words to speak, could have been Marlowe himself!

Enter the English Agent

Henry: Agent for England, send thy mistress word
What this detested Jacobin hath done.
Tell her, for all this, that I hope to live;
Which if I do, the papal monarch goes
To wrack, and th’ antichristian kingdom falls.
These bloody hands shall tear his triple crown,
And fire accursed Rome about his ears;
I’ll fire his crazed buildings, and enforce
The papal towers to kiss the lowly earth.
Navarre, give me thy hand: I here do swear
To ruinate that wicked Church of Rome,
That hatcheth up such bloody practices;
And here protest eternal love to thee,
And to the Queen of England specially,
Whom God hath bless’d for hating papistry.

The Massacre at Paris – Scene XXII, Lines 56-70

Henry dies because the dagger was poisoned, but here is shown making a pact of friendship with the King of Navarre, the leader of the Huguenots who suffered dreadful slaughter in the blood-bath of St. Bartholomew’s Eve in 1572, when 3,000 men, women and even babes in arms were massacred by the Catholic faction. The river Seine ran red with blood!

This massacre is the title of Marlowe’s play. He was eight years old when this happened, and Canterbury received an influx of Huguenot refugees to whom Queen Elizabeth granted asylum and gave them the Undercroft of the Cathedral to use for their worship. The feelings of horror that this massacre engendered are reflected in the passion expressed by Marlowe in this speech.

Death in Deptford

The Suspects

On 30 May 1593 a murder was said to have been committed in a room that had been hired for a private meeting in a respectable house in Deptford, owned by Dame Eleanor Bull. It was not a tavern as is often alleged. Dame Bull had Court connections. Her sister, Blanche, was the god-daughter of Blanche Parry, who had been the much loved nanny of the infant Elizabeth and was a “cousin” of Lord Burghley’s. Now widowed, Dame Bull hired out rooms and served meals. It was likely that her home was a safe house for Government Agents.

The strange circumstances of Marlowe’s murder in that room at Deptford have been the subject of endless debate and conflicting theories. The following is the official story as related in the Coroner’s Report, discovered by Dr. Leslie Hotson in 1925 in the archives of the Public Records Office, London.

Four men were said to have been present at Dame Bull’s house on that day:

Robert Poley: an experienced government agent, who carried the Queen’s most secret and important letters in post to and from the courts of Europe. He arrived at Deptford direct from The Hague, where he had been on the Queen’s business – Deptford then being a busy naval dockyard and port from which ships voyaged back and forth to the Continent.
Ingram Frizer: the personal servant and business agent of Marlowe’s patron, the wealthy Thomas Walsingham, cousin of the recently deceased Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham, who had created the espionage service which protected Queen Elizabeth’s life from the on-going Catholic assassination plots. Thomas Walsingham had assisted his illustrious cousin as his right-hand man and was himself a master-spy.
Nicholas Skeres: a minor cog in the great Walsingham spy machine, who often assisted Poley. A shady character, who was, at this time, engaged in a double-dealing project with Ingram Frizer to fleece a naive young man of his money (termed “conny-catching” by the Elizabethans). In fact Skeres, Frizer and Poley were all skillful con-men and liars.
Christopher Marlowe: the famous poet-dramatist, who enjoyed both the friendship and the patronage of Thomas Walsingham and at whose estate, Scadbury in Kent, he was staying at the time of his arrest, having gone there to escape the plague in London.

Thomas Walsingham therefore can be seen to be connected with all four of these men.

Arrest

Marlowe was arrested on Sunday 20th May 1593, on a charge of atheism, which was heresy, a serious crime for which the ultimate penalty was to be burned at the stake. Despite the seriousness of the charge, however, he was not immediately imprisoned or tortured on the rack, as his fellow playwright Thomas Kyd had been. He was granted bail on condition he reported daily to an officer of the Court.

Soon an old enemy of Marlowe’s, Richard Baines, produced to the Privy Council a “Note” against Marlowe repeating what he was alleged to have said (worthless hearsay evidence), and implicating him in the capital crimes of scorning Scripture and the Church, and of coining.

This “Baines Note” was remarkably similar in content to the (false) confession that Baines himself had been compelled to sign at the Catholic Seminary at Rheims in 1582 before they would release him. It was a fairly standard formula of accusation/confession.

On Wednesday 30th May Marlowe was said to have spent the day at Deptford with Poley, Frizer, and Skeres. The official Coroner’s Report reveals what was supposed to have happened, but at the time it was not public knowledge. Marlowe was rumoured to have been killed in a tavern brawl, and all else was speculation. The Coroner’s report was only discovered in 1925 by Dr. Leslie Hotson.

The Coroner’s Inquisition

The following is a report of the inquisition into the death of Christopher Marlowe by Willliam Danby, Coroner of the Queen’s Household. The document¹² was discovered in 1925 by Dr. Leslie Hotson, with the original Latin report and the following translation appearing in his book, The Death of Christopher Marlowe. The report represents the official version of events at Dame Eleanor Bull’s house on 30 May 1593.

“KENT/INQUISITION Indented taken at Detford Strand in the aforesaid County of Kent within the verge on the first day of June in the year of the reign of Elizabeth by the grace of God of England France and Ireland Queen defender of the faith &c thirtyfifth, in the presence of William Danby, Gentleman, Coroner of the household of our said lady the Queen, upon view of the body of Christopher Morley, there lying dead & slain, upon oath of Nicholas Draper, Gentleman, Wolstan Randall, gentleman, William Curry, Adrian Walker, John Barber, Robert Baldwyn, Giles ffeld, George Halfepenny, Henry Awger, James Batt, Henry Bendyn, Thomas Batt senior, John Baldwyn, Alexander Burrage, Edmund Goodcheepe, & Henry Dabyns who say [upon] their oath that:

Ingram ffrysar, late of London, Gentleman, and the aforesaid Christopher Morley, and Nicholas Skeres, late of London, Gentleman, and Robert Poley of London aforesaid, Gentleman, on the thirtieth of May in the aforesaid thirtyfifth year, at the aforesaid Detford Strand in the aforesaid 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; & there passed the time together & dined & after dinner were in quiet sort together & walked in the garden belonging to the said house until the sixth hour after noon of the same day & then returned from the said garden to the room aforesaid & there together and in company supped;

& after supper the said Ingram & Christopher Morley were in speech & 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 recknynge, there;

& the said Christopher Morley then lying upon a bed in the room where they supped, & moved with anger against the said Ingram ffrysar upon the words aforesaid spoken between them, and the said Ingram then & there sitting in the room aforesaid with his back towards the bed where the said Christopher Morley was then lying, sitting near the bed, that is, nere the bed, & with the front part of his body towards the table & the aforesaid Nicholas Skeres & Robert Poley sitting on either side of the said Ingram in such a manner that the same Ingram ffrysar in no wise could take flight;

it so befell that the said Christopher Morley on a sudden & of his malice towards the said Ingram aforethought, then & there maliciously drew the dagger of the said Ingram which was at his back, and with the same dagger the said Christopher Morley then & there maliciously gave the aforesaid Ingram two wounds on his head of the length of two inches & of the depth of a quarter of an inch;

where-upon the said Ingram, in fear of being slain, & sitting in the manner aforesaid between the said Nicholas Skeres & Robert Poley so that he could not in any wise get away, in his own defence & for the saving of his life, then & there struggled with the said Christopher Morley to get back from him his dagger aforesaid; in which affray the same Ingram could not get away from the said Christopher Morley;

& so it befell in that affray that the said Ingram, in defence of his life, with the dagger aforesaid to the value of 12d, gave the said Christopher then & there a mortal wound over his right eye of the depth of two inches & of the width of one inch; of which mortal wound the aforesaid Christopher Morley then & there instantly died;

& so the Jurors aforesaid say upon their oath that the said Ingram killed & slew Christopher Morley aforesaid on the thirtieth day of May in the thirtyfifth year named above at Detford Strand aforesaid within the verge in the room aforesaid within the verge in the manner and form aforesaid in the defence and saving of his own life, against the peace of our said lady the Queen, her now crown & dignity;

And further the said Jurors say upon their oath that the said Ingram after the slaying aforesaid perpetrated & done by him in the manner & form aforesaid neither fled nor withdrew himself;

But what goods or chattels, lands or tenements the said Ingram had at the time of the slaying aforesaid, done and perpetrated by him in the manner & form aforesaid, the said Jurors are totally ignorant.”

In witness of which thing the said Coroner as well as the Jurors aforesaid to this Inquisition have interchangeably set their seals.

Given the day & year above named &c.

by WILLIAM DANBY Coroner.”

The report leaves many questions unasked and there are many hypotheses as to what really happened that day in Deptford, producing theories that range from a Government backed assassination to a faked murder. See our discussion on some interpretations of the Coroner’s Inquisition report, and the issues it raises.

Why Didn’t They Ask Eleanor?

One does not need a first-class degree in law to recognise the inadequacy of this inquest as a means of establishing the whole truth about Christopher Marlowe’s death, for the report leaves many questions unasked, presumably because they were not asked at the inquest.

Did anyone not present at the death identify the corpse?
Was any medical evidence given about the time and cause of death?
Was Eleanor Bull called? Or her servants?
Did anyone at all give evidence about the purpose of the meeting of the four men that day?
Who booked the room? Who was to pay for it?
And what was actually discussed during all those hours in house and garden?

The inquest report implies a firm No! to the first four questions, and that the other questions were not asked. This suggests that the inquest was carefully controlled, and guided to its probable purpose of establishing that Marlowe was dead, and that Frizer had killed him blamelessly, in self defence.

Like sixteenth century inquest reports generally, this report records only the Coroner’s summary of what had been established by the evidence heard. But who gave the evidence, and what they said, is not recorded, and we are left with the impression that the evidence was that of Poley, Frizer, and Skeres alone, the three men said to have been present at the death. Their secret service connection does not seem to have been recognised at the inquest, where they were simply ‘gentlemen’.

As for them – in his invaluable mine of information, The Reckoning, Charles Nicholl describes those three men as a “profoundly slippery trio,”¹³ and a “dodgy delusive trio.”¹⁴ “The only evidence for [Marlowe’s attack on Frizer] is the testimony of a pair of professional deceivers, Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley”¹⁵. Elsewhere Nicholl quotes Poley’s “own assertion that if he had to, he would willingly perjure himself, rather than say anything that would do him ‘harm’.”¹⁶

Thus does Nicholl completely demolish the credibility of the only witnesses that must have been heard at the inquest. And yet he still confirms the assumptions with which he began his book, “that those four men met at the house at Deptford and that Marlowe died in their company.”¹⁷ He lamely concludes that Marlowe’s death was “meaningless,”¹⁸ a word surely appropriate for Nicholl’s verdict, which is more consistent with Stratfordian orthodoxy than with common sense. Apparently no evidence was heard, except that of the “profoundly slippery trio,” that Marlowe was even present with them that day, or that the corpse was Marlowe’s.

The most credible “meaning” in the inadequate inquest, and the hasty burial of the corpse in an unmarked grave, is that it was to establish officially that Christopher Marlowe was dead, when he wasn’t. And as to the ludicrous pantomime described as having led to Marlowe’s death, well, if this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction, as Fabian said about another carefully planned charade¹⁹.

A Fight Over The Bill?

The Inquisition report was signed by William Danby, coroner to the royal household, because the murder had been committed “within the verge” – that is, within twelve miles of the Queen’s presence – and she was then in residence at her favourite palace of Nonsuch in Surrey, about ten miles from Deptford. This meant that the royal coroner took precedence over the local coroner.

With his death now officially recorded, the body of Christopher Marlowe was hurriedly buried in an unmarked grave in St. Nicholas churchyard, Deptford.

Ingram Frizer went to prison to await the Queen’s pardon, which arrived in the extraordinarily brief space of twenty-eight days – probably the shortest on record! On his release, a free man, Frizer immediately returned to the service of his master, Thomas Walsingham, whose dear friend and “admired poet” he had just murdered! He remained in the service of Walsingham for the rest of his life.

So just how plausible is the conclusion of the Inquisition that this was an accidental killing over “le recknynge”?

The details and cicumstances of Marlowe’s death remained undiscovered until 1925, though lurid and far-fetched accounts did start to appear in the late 1590s. The details of the Inquisition clearly passed from the Queen’s Coroner to the Queen herself and her Privy Council, so these details will have become known to a select circle within a few days. How much became known to Marlowe’s friends and associates in the world of the theatre and espionage, and in the so-called School of Night, is much more uncertain, though the fact of Marlowe’s death was certainly known, for instance, to the dramatist George Peele, before the end of June 1593.

If we assume Frizer’s story to be true we are, therefore, following the lead of such Elizabethan contemporaries who knew the details, and the twentieth century readers and admirers of Leslie Hotson.

But the story takes some swallowing.

Frizer had a known record as a liar, and here he had every motive to lie, for he was on trial for his life. Moreover a true and trusty servant would have been expected to guard his master’s guest’s life with his own. Moreover the record of Skeres and Poley as spies and dissimulators indicates that their evidence, in a modern court of law, would be regarded with grave suspicion.

The whole day’s business makes little sense to modern eyes, and the details of the fight are totally inane.

The suggestion of an “accidental” killing presupposes a drunken brawl, and the question of paying the bill seems of total insignificance beside the issues of impending imprisonment, trial, torture and horrific death, which were awaiting Marlowe on the morrow.

Conspiracy Theories

The two main conspiracy theories are either that Marlowe’s killing was a government sponsored assassination, or that his death was faked.

An Assassination?

Marlowe was involved as a secret service agent in the dark Elizabethan world of spying, double-dealing, disguise, plotting and political assassination. His death, viewed in this light, would apparently make more sense. However, to accept this motive for his murder we have to make a plausible attempt at identifying both the real murderers or authors of the plot, and the reasons why they wanted Marlowe out of the way.

It is, of course, absolutely certain that there was secret service involvement in the plot, and this accounts for the group of extraordinary personalities that gathered together that day in Deptford. Only Frizer is not known to have had any specific secret service connections, but, of course, his master, Thomas Walsingham was a master spy in his own right, and Frizer would be there to do his master’s bidding.

The next question that has to be asked is whether the secret service involvement was professional or private. In other words, were the events at Deptford the result of government orders to the secret service (or at least the orders of one political faction) or were individuals using their own initiative, adopting secret service methods?

It is difficult to imagine what the Privy Council or those members of it most actively involved with the secret service such as Lord Burghley, his son Robert Cecil, and the Earl of Essex, could have gained by their involvement in an assassination plot. Marlowe was already a doomed man, and could easily carry his secrets to the grave. Perhaps there may have been a fear that certain shady transactions might have been revealed under torture but these too could have been hushed up? Moreover such a ham-fisted method of disposing of him would have provoked more sensation and notice than a quiet dagger in the back in the street on a dark night, which was a more usual secret service mode of operating.

Thomas Walsingham almost certainly had links with the circle of freethinkers that grouped themselves around Sir Walter Raleigh, the “Wizard” Earl of Northumberland, and Ferdinando, Lord Strange, and which we know now as The School of Night. Rumours of atheism, heresy, and black magic that gathered around them indicate how the ignorant came to regard their insatiable quest for knowledge and debate. Marlowe, as a member, would have known their secrets, and had they had something to hide might have revealed it under torture. However, the idea of murdering Marlowe to protect themselves seems totally out of character, and would surely have never been accepted by this brave band of free-thinking pioneers. Nevertheless the idea cannot be totally dismissed.

Finally we have briefly to examine the idea of a secret service punitive killing, directed against a betrayer or double-dealer. For this to be a possibility Walsingham himself has to become an arch double-dealer, inveigling his friend into a false sense of security and then killing him. However, the secret murder in the street on a dark night or even a typical Renaissance poisoning would have been far more appropriate and easy to hush up.

Clearly a secret service assassination required skill and guile, born of long experience; this plot exhibited neither.

Conspiracy Theories

The two main conspiracy theories are either that Marlowe’s killing was a government sponsored assassination, or that his death was faked.

A Faked Murder?

This idea has been gaining in popularity in recent years. It stems directly from the same circumstances that give rise to the idea of the assassination plot, namely secret service involvement, probably acting under orders from a higher authority. Once again there may have been persons of rank who had much to lose by revelations that Marlowe might make under torture, but with this theory they may have resolved to save him rather than kill him.

Once again the secret service were accustomed to operations of this nature; substitute heads such as Ragozine’s for Claudio’s in Measure for Measure speedily come to mind. It is even possible that Marlowe was a valued spy with particular experience that was badly needed in 1593. Sadly it is much more unlikely that anyone would have gone to such trouble to save England’s leading dramatist.

As stated previously Thomas Walsingham had all the necessary skills and contacts to make such a plot successful, and Poley, in particular, the expertise to carry it out. But again it has to be asked whether they would have done it in a manner so likely to bring trouble on themselves, if they had not had the backing of some of the leading figures of the land.

Only two such figures seem likely to have had the authority both to give such orders and to brazen it out afterwards. These are Queen Elizabeth herself and Lord Burghley. Either or both could have had direct access to the Secret Service, probably through Walsingham. To rescue Marlowe at the eleventh hour from the grip of the Court of Star Chamber would look highly suspicious, under whatever guise the rescue was effected.

The ecclesiastic group on the Privy Council headed by Archbishop Whitgift were no doubt anxious to make Marlowe an example, as an atheist, heretic and dissolute playwright. They would not be easily shaken off the scent. Whether Elizabeth and/or Burghley were prepared to risk such divisions and accusations among members of the Privy Council may be seriously open to question. Almost certainly this is precisely what happened when news was brought to the Privy Council of the highly convenient death of Marlowe in Dame Eleanor Bull’s house on 30 May 1593.

If Marlowe’s death was faked, then it follows that he most likely must have been smuggled out of the country to live abroad in exile. Research into this hypothesis has been undertaken, most notably by A.D.Wraight who has examined possible clues in Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

Marlowe in Exile

THE SHAKESPEARE AUTHORSHIP DEBATE

The Marlowe Society is NOT devoted to proving that Marlowe was the true author of the Shakespeare canon. It is devoted to promoting the generally accepted works of Marlowe as the founder of English drama and the perfecter of dramatic blank verse. Without Marlowe as guide and leader, Shakespeare and the other Elizabethan poets and dramatists would not have achieved the reputation they enjoy today. There are, however, serious doubts about the record of Marlowe’s death at Deptford in 1593, doubts recognised by the question-mark in the Marlowe memorial window unveiled in Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey on 11 July 2002. Because so little is known of William Shakespeare’s life that corresponds with the personality of the playwright and sonneteer, there have been reputable scholars in all ages who have doubted that William Shakespeare could have written the works that carry his name. To recognise this “Shakespeare problem” and see Marlowe as the most convincing solution to it, is no bar to membership of the Marlowe Society. It does add to the interest of Marlowe, and it has brought more members to the Society. However, even without this added interest Marlowe deserves to be more widely known and performed. It is to his life and works that The Marlowe Society, and this site, are dedicated. Do join the Society and make your contribution. As to the Marlowe/Shakespeare debate: the Society is pleased to consider contributions (on either side of the argument) for these web pages, or for the pages of the Marlowe Society Newsletter, or the Research Journal, provided what they have to say is rational and based on fact, not on a hyperactive imagination. (To avoid ambiguity, contributions to the debate in these web pages are sub-headed “A Marlowe/Shakespeare Debate Page”.) Meanwhile, until somebody wins the Hoffman Prize by convincing the world that Marlowe was indeed Shakespeare, the Society’s objects are to promote the works of Marlowe that are generally accepted as his today. Summary: Dave Kathman and Terry Ross’ site dedicated to the proposition that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. Well researched arguments, many refuting the Oxfordian case, plus an extensive list of Bardlinks (although our site is misleadingly labelled as Marlovian). See also a related Discussion board. Website Link: http://shakespeareauthorship.com/

Shakespeare Fellowship

Summary: An Oxfordian site dedicated to research in the field of Shakespearean authorship, and the theory that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, is the true author. A Virtual Classroom contains a number of lengthy essays, and a revised chronology counters the fact of Oxford’s death in 1604. Heated Discussion Boards. Website Link: http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/

SHAKSPER

Summary: An international electronic conference for Shakespearean researchers, instructors, students, and those who share their academic interests and concerns, edited by Hardy M. Cook. Submitted papers as well as the searchable mailing list. Not especially interested in the Authorship debate. Website Link: http://www.shaksper.net/

Sir Bacon

Summary: Lawrence Gerald’s entertaining and enlightening site explores the many facets of Francis Bacon’s life and work including a summary of Baconian evidence, and Mather Walker’s essay Resurrecting Marley. See also Paul Dupuy’s site for Bacon texts and a chronology of Shakespeare documentation. Website Link: http://www.sirbacon.org/

THE HOFFMAN PRIZE

Calvin Hoffman

The Hoffman Prize was established by a bequest of the late Calvin Hoffman, author of The Murder of the Man Who Was Shakespeare (Max Parrish 1955). The prize is competitive and open to all scholars and informed laymen the world over. It is administered by The King’s School, Canterbury, who appoint eminent academics from time to time to act as Adjudicators of essays submitted.

The Trust

The Calvin & Rose G Hoffman Marlowe Memorial Trust is a registered charity (no. 289971) dedicated to research into the life and work of Christopher Marlowe. The Trust Fund is substantial, and the principal prize is equal to one half of the capital of the entire Trust Fund, whose value will depend on the varying value of investments. Meanwhile annual prizes, based upon the Fund’s annual income, are in the region of £9000.

The Principal Prize

Calvin Hoffman was convinced that Christopher Marlowe wrote the works attributed to William Shakespeare. The principal prize will be awarded to the person who “has in the opinion of the King’s School furnished irrefutable and incontrovertible proof and evidence required to satisfy the world of Shakespearian scholarship that all the plays and poems now commonly attributed to William Shakespeare were in fact written by Christopher Marlowe.“

The Annual Prize

Until the Principal Prize has been awarded, The Calvin and Rose G Hoffman Prize for a Distinguished Publication on Christopher Marlowe is offered annually. This is awarded to the person who submits to The King’s School prior to the first day of September in any year, an essay that, in the opinion of The King’s School, most convincingly, authoritatively and informatively examines and discusses in depth the life and works of Christopher Marlowe and the authorship of the plays and poems now commonly attributed to William Shakespeare, with particular regard to the possibility that Christopher Marlowe wrote some or all of those plays and poems, or made some inspirational creative or compositional contributions towards the authorship of them.

Submissions

The closing date for entries in any year is 01 September, and the winner of the annual prize will be announced early the following December. There is no stipulation as to the length of the essay but the Trustees consider that it should be of not less than about 5000 words. There is no upper limit, but diffuseness of presentation will be penalised. Essays (written in English) should be typed in double spacing, and should be documented in accepted scholarly fashion. Each essay should be accompanied by a signed statement of originality, and all quotations from other writers should be acknowledged.

Essays will be judged on their scholarly contribution to the study of Christopher Marlowe and his relationship to William Shakespeare, whether or not they support the view that Marlowe was partially or wholly responsible for the works attributed to Shakespeare. Published works cannot be considered.

Essays submitted should be posted in duplicate to:

The Hoffman Administrator,
The King’s School,
25 The Precincts,
Canterbury,
CT1 2ES.

Further details of the competition and its conditions may be also obtained by writing to this address.

Can the Principal Prize Ever Be Won?

The King’s School cannot give potential competitors any estimate of the value of the principal prize since it depends upon the varying value of investments, but it can be assumed that it would be substantial.

However, it is difficult to see how it could actually be won. Even if The King’s School were satisfied that a competitor had produced the irrefutable evidence required, how should Shakespearian scholarship be convinced? If evidence is “irrefutable”, but highly inconvenient, it is normal practice to dismiss it with lofty scorn – not to try to refute it. It would surely take a generation or two, and possibly more than the value of the prize itself, before the sceptical world of Shakespearian scholarship – to say nothing of the interested world of Shakespearian commerce – would abandon its claims in the face of “irrefutable evidence”.

View previous winners here