Editing Christopher Marlowe (section)

===Spying===
[[File:OldCurtCC.JPG|thumb|left|The corner of Old Court of [[Corpus Christi College, Cambridge]], where Marlowe stayed while a Cambridge student and, possibly, during the time he was recruited as a spy]]
Marlowe is alleged to have been a government spy.{{sfnp|Honan|2005|p={{page needed|date=February 2022}}}} [[Park Honan]] and [[Charles Nicholl (author)|Charles Nicholl]] speculate that this was the case and suggest that Marlowe's recruitment took place when he was at Cambridge.{{sfnp|Honan|2005|p={{page needed|date=February 2022}}}}{{sfnp|Nicholl|1992|loc="12"}} In 1587, when the Privy Council ordered the University of Cambridge to award Marlowe his degree as Master of Arts, it denied rumours that he intended to go to the English Catholic college in [[Rheims]], saying instead that he had been engaged in unspecified "affaires" on "matters touching the benefit of his country".<ref>This is from a document dated 29 June 1587, from the National Archives – ''Acts of Privy Council''.</ref> Surviving college records from the period also indicate that, in the academic year 1584–1585, Marlowe had had a series of unusually lengthy absences from the university which violated university regulations. Surviving college [[Buttery (shop)|buttery]] accounts, which record student purchases for personal provisions, show that Marlowe began spending lavishly on food and drink during the periods he was in attendance; the amount was more than he could have afforded on his known scholarship income.{{sfnp|Nicholl|1992|p={{page needed|date=February 2022}}}}{{efn|It is known that some poorer students worked as labourers on the Corpus Christi College chapel, then under construction, and were paid by the college with extra food. It has been suggested this may be the reason for the sums noted in Marlowe's entry in the buttery accounts.<ref name="Riggs2004">{{cite book|first=David|last=Riggs|title=The World of Christopher Marlowe|page=65|year=2004a|publisher=Faber|isbn=978-0-571-22159-2}}</ref>}}

[[File:Sir Francis Walsingham by John De Critz the Elder.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.9|Portrait of alleged "spymaster" Sir [[Francis Walsingham]] ''c.'' 1585; attributed to [[John de Critz]]]]
It has been speculated that Marlowe was the "Morley" who was tutor to [[Arbella Stuart]] in 1589.{{efn|He was described by Arbella's guardian, the Countess of Shrewsbury, as having hoped for an annuity of some £40 from Arbella, his being "so much damnified (i.e. having lost this much) by leaving the University."<ref>British Library [[Lansdowne MS.]] 71, f.3.</ref>{{sfnp|Nicholl|1992|pp=340–342}}}} This possibility was first raised in a ''[[Times Literary Supplement]]'' letter by E. St John Brooks in 1937; in a letter to ''[[Notes and Queries]]'', John Baker has added that only Marlowe could have been Arbella's tutor owing to the absence of any other known "Morley" from the period with an MA and not otherwise occupied.<ref>John Baker, letter to ''Notes and Queries'' 44.3 (1997), pp. 367–368</ref> If Marlowe was Arbella's tutor, it might indicate that he was there as a spy, since Arbella, niece of [[Mary, Queen of Scots]], and cousin of James VI of Scotland, later [[James I of England]], was at the time a strong candidate for the [[succession to Elizabeth's throne]].{{sfnp|Kuriyama|2002|p=89}}{{sfnp|Nicholl|1992|p=342}}<ref name="Handover">{{cite book |last1=Handover |first1=P. M. |title=Arbella Stuart, royal lady of Hardwick and cousin to King James |date=1957 |publisher=Eyre & Spottiswoode |location=London}}</ref><ref>[http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Elizabeth/index.html Elizabeth I and James VI and I] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061214113207/http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Elizabeth/index.html |date=14 December 2006 }}, [http://www.history.ac.uk/ History in Focus] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110908034533/http://www.history.ac.uk/ |date=8 September 2011 }}.</ref> [[Frederick S. Boas]] dismisses the possibility of this identification, based on surviving legal records which document Marlowe's "residence in London between September and December 1589". Marlowe had been party to a fatal quarrel involving his neighbours and the poet [[Thomas Watson (poet)|Thomas Watson]] in [[Norton Folgate]] and was held in [[Newgate Prison]] for a fortnight.{{sfnp|Boas|1953|pp=101ff}} In fact, the quarrel and his arrest occurred on 18 September, he was released on bail on 1 October and he had to attend court, where he was acquitted on 3 December, but there is no record of where he was for the intervening two months.{{sfnp|Kuriyama|2002|p=xvi}}

In 1592 Marlowe was arrested in the English [[Cautionary Towns|garrison town]] of [[Flushing, Netherlands|Flushing]] (Vlissingen) in the Netherlands, for alleged involvement in the [[Counterfeit money|counterfeiting]] of coins, presumably related to the activities of seditious Catholics. He was sent to the Lord Treasurer ([[William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley|Burghley]]), but no charge or imprisonment resulted.<ref>For a full transcript, see [http://www.rey.myzen.co.uk/flushing.htm Peter Farey's Marlowe page] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304031527/http://www.rey.myzen.co.uk/flushing.htm |date=4 March 2016 }} (Retrieved 30 April 2015).</ref> This arrest may have disrupted another of Marlowe's spying missions, perhaps by giving the resulting coinage to the Catholic cause. He was to infiltrate the followers of the active Catholic plotter [[William Stanley (Elizabethan)|William Stanley]] and report back to Burghley.{{sfnp|Nicholl|1992|pp=246–248}}