Editing Christopher Marlowe (section)

===Arrest and death===
[[File:marlowe.jpg|thumb|Marlowe was buried in an unmarked grave in the churchyard of St Nicholas, [[Deptford]]. This modern plaque is on the east wall of the churchyard.]]
In early May 1593, several bills were posted about London threatening the Protestant refugees from France and the Netherlands who had settled in the city. One of these, the "Dutch church libel", written in rhymed [[iambic pentameter]], contained allusions to several of Marlowe's plays and was signed, "[[Tamburlaine]]".<ref>For a full transcript, see [http://www.rey.myzen.co.uk/libell.htm Peter Farey's Marlowe page] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150622092454/http://www.rey.myzen.co.uk/libell.htm |date=22 June 2015 }} (Retrieved 31 March 2012).</ref> On 11 May 1593 the [[Privy Council of the United Kingdom|Privy Council]] ordered the arrest of those responsible for the libels. The next day, Marlowe's colleague [[Thomas Kyd]] was arrested and when his lodgings were searched, a three-page fragment of a [[heresy|heretical]] tract was found. On being charged with atheism and tortured, Kyd declared the document to be Marlowe's, and to have been shuffled together with his own papers when they were writing together in the same chamber two years previously.<ref>The document was identified in the 20th century as transcripts from the historian [[John Proctor (historian)|John Proctor]]'s book ''The Fal of the Late Arrian'' (1549). See George T. Buckley, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2911627 "Who was 'the Late Arrian'?"], ''Modern Language Notes'' v. 49, no. 8 (Dec. 1934), p. 500-503.</ref><ref name="Peter Farey's Marlowe page">[[Thomas Kyd]], letter to Sir [[John Puckering]], undated, held by the British Library, Harley MS. 6849, folio 218r-v. The letter was published in F.S. Boas, ''Works of Kyd'', p. cx–cxiii. For a full transcript, see [http://www.rey.myzen.co.uk/kyd2.htm Peter Farey's Marlowe page] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150622085958/http://www.rey.myzen.co.uk/kyd2.htm |date=22 June 2015 }} (Retrieved 8 February 2025).</ref> In a second letter, Kyd said they had both been working for an aristocratic patron (probably [[Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby|Ferdinando Stanley]]), and he described Marlowe as blasphemous, disorderly, holding treasonous opinions, being an irreligious reprobate and "intemperate & of a cruel hart".<ref name=ODNB>Mulryne, J. R. [https://www.oxforddnb.com/search?q=Thomas+Kyd&searchBtn=Search&isQuickSearch=true "Thomas Kyd."]''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]''. Oxford: [[Oxford University Press]], 2004.{{subscription required}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220904211123/https://www.oxforddnb.com/search?q=Thomas+Kyd&searchBtn=Search&isQuickSearch=true |date=4 September 2022 }}</ref> 
A warrant for Marlowe's arrest was issued on 18 May 1593, when the Privy Council apparently knew that he might be found staying with [[Thomas Walsingham (literary patron)|Thomas Walsingham]], whose father was a first cousin of the late Sir [[Francis Walsingham]], Elizabeth's [[Secretary of State (England)|principal secretary]] in the 1580s and a man more deeply involved in state espionage than any other member of the Privy Council.<ref>Haynes, Alan. ''The Elizabethan Secret Service''. London: Sutton, 2005.</ref> Marlowe duly presented himself on 20 May 1593 but there apparently being no Privy Council meeting on that day, was instructed to "give his daily attendance on their Lordships, until he shall be licensed to the contrary".<ref>National Archives, ''Acts of the Privy Council''. Meetings of the Privy Council, including details of those attending, are recorded and minuted for 16, 23, 25, 29 and the morning of 31 May 1593 , all of them taking place in the Star Chamber at Westminster. There is no record of any meeting on either 18 or 20 May 1593, however, just a note of the warrant being issued on 18 May 1593 and the fact that Marlowe "entered his appearance for his indemnity therein" on the 20th.</ref> On Wednesday, 30 May 1593, Marlowe was killed.

[[File:Palladis Tamia 1598.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|Title page to the 1598 edition of ''[[Palladis Tamia]]'' by [[Francis Meres]], which contains one of the earliest descriptions of Marlowe's death]]
Various accounts of Marlowe's death were current over the next few years. In his ''[[Palladis Tamia]]'', published in 1598, [[Francis Meres]] says Marlowe was "stabbed to death by a bawdy serving-man, a rival of his in his lewd love" as punishment for his "[[Epicureanism|epicurism]] and atheism".<ref>''Palladis Tamia''. London, 1598: 286v–287r.</ref> In 1917, in the ''[[Dictionary of National Biography]]'', Sir [[Sidney Lee]] wrote, on slender evidence, that Marlowe was killed in a drunken fight. His claim was not much at variance with the official account, which came to light only in 1925, when the scholar [[Leslie Hotson]] discovered the [[coroner]]'s report of the inquest on Marlowe's death, held two days later on Friday 1 June 1593, by the [[Coroner of the Queen's Household]], [[William Danby (coroner)|William Danby]].<ref name="rey.myzen.co.uk"/> Marlowe had spent all day in a house in [[Deptford, London|Deptford]], owned by the widow [[Eleanor Bull]], with three men: [[Ingram Frizer]], [[Nicholas Skeres]] and [[Robert Poley]]. All three had been employed by one or other of the Walsinghams. Skeres and Poley had helped snare the conspirators in the [[Babington plot]], and Frizer was a servant{{sfnmp|Kuriyama|2002|1pp=102–103, 135, 156|Honan|2005|2p=355}} to Thomas Walsingham, probably acting as a financial or business agent, as he was for Walsingham's wife [[Audrey Walsingham|Audrey]] a few years later.{{sfnp|Hotson|1925|p=65}}{{sfnp|Honan|2005|p=325}} These witnesses testified that Frizer and Marlowe had argued over payment of the bill (now famously known as the "Reckoning"), exchanging "divers malicious words", while Frizer was sitting at a table between the other two and Marlowe was lying behind him on a couch. Marlowe snatched Frizer's dagger and wounded him on the head. According to the coroner's report, in the ensuing struggle Marlowe was stabbed above the right eye, killing him instantly. The jury concluded that Frizer acted in self-defence and within a month he was pardoned. Marlowe was buried in an unmarked grave in the churchyard of St. Nicholas, Deptford, immediately after the inquest, on 1 June 1593.<ref>Wilson, Scott. ''Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons'', 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 30125). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.</ref>

The complete text of the inquest report was published by Leslie Hotson in his book, ''The Death of Christopher Marlowe'', in the introduction to which Professor [[George Lyman Kittredge]] wrote: "The mystery of Marlowe's death, heretofore involved in a cloud of contradictory gossip and irresponsible guess-work, is now cleared up for good and all on the authority of public records of complete authenticity and gratifying fullness". However, this confidence proved to be fairly short-lived. Hotson had considered the possibility that the witnesses had "concocted a lying account of Marlowe's behaviour, to which they swore at the inquest, and with which they deceived the jury", but decided against that scenario.{{sfnp|Hotson|1925|pp=39–40}} Others began to suspect that this theory was indeed the case. Writing to the ''Times Literary Supplement'' shortly after the book's publication, Eugénie de Kalb disputed that the struggle and outcome as described were even possible, and [[Samuel A. Tannenbaum]] insisted the following year that such a wound could not have possibly resulted in instant death, as had been claimed.<ref name="de Kalb">de Kalb, Eugénie (May 1925). "The Death of Marlowe", in ''The Times Literary Supplement''</ref>{{sfnp|Tannenbaum|1926|pp=41–42}} Even Marlowe's biographer John Bakeless acknowledged that "some scholars have been inclined to question the truthfulness of the coroner's report. There is something queer about the whole episode", and said that Hotson's discovery "raises almost as many questions as it answers".<ref>Bakeless, John (1942). ''The Tragicall History of Christopher Marlowe'', p. 182</ref> It has also been discovered more recently that the apparent absence of a local county coroner to accompany the Coroner of the Queen's Household would, if noticed, have made the inquest null and void.{{sfnp|Honan|2005|p=354}}

One of the main reasons for doubting the truth of the inquest concerns the reliability of Marlowe's companions as witnesses.<ref>Nicholl, Charles (2004). "Marlowe [Marley], Christopher", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/18079 online edn], January 2008. Retrieved 24 August 2013. "The authenticity of the inquest is not in doubt, but whether it tells the full truth is another matter. The nature of Marlowe's companions raises questions about their reliability as witnesses."</ref> As an ''agent provocateur'' for the late Sir Francis Walsingham, Robert Poley was a consummate liar, the "very genius of the Elizabethan underworld", and was on record as saying "I will swear and forswear myself, rather than I will accuse myself to do me any harm".{{sfnp|Boas|1953|p=293}}{{sfnp|Nicholl|2002|p=38}} The other witness, Nicholas Skeres, had for many years acted as a [[confidence trickster]], drawing young men into the clutches of people involved in the [[loanshark|money-lending]] racket, including Marlowe's apparent killer, Ingram Frizer, with whom he was engaged in such a swindle.{{sfnp|Nicholl|2002 |pp=29–30}} Despite their being referred to as ''generosi'' (gentlemen) in the inquest report, the witnesses were professional liars. Some biographers, such as Kuriyama and Downie, take the inquest to be a true account of what occurred, but in trying to explain what really happened if the account was not true, others have come up with a variety of murder theories:{{sfnp|Kuriyama|2002|p=136}}<ref>{{harvc|last=Downie |first=J. A. |c=Marlowe, facts and fictions |in1=Downie |in2=Parnell |year=2000 |pages=26–27}}</ref>
* Jealous of her husband Thomas's relationship with Marlowe, Audrey Walsingham arranged for the playwright to be murdered.<ref name="de Kalb"/>
* Sir Walter Raleigh arranged the murder, fearing that under torture Marlowe might incriminate him.{{sfnp|Tannenbaum|1926|p={{page needed|date=February 2022}}}}
* With Skeres the main player, the murder resulted from attempts by the [[Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex|Earl of Essex]] to use Marlowe to incriminate Sir Walter Raleigh.{{sfnp|Nicholl|2002|p=415}}
* He was killed on the orders of father and son Lord Burghley and [[Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury|Sir Robert Cecil]], who thought that his plays contained Catholic propaganda.<ref>Breight, Curtis C. (1996). '' Surveillance, Militarism and Drama in the Elizabethan Era'', p. 114</ref>
* He was accidentally killed while Frizer and Skeres were pressuring him to pay back money he owed them.<ref>Hammer, Paul E. J. (1996) "A Reckoning Reframed: the 'Murder' of Christopher Marlowe Revisited", in ''English Literary Renaissance'', pp. 225–242</ref>
* Marlowe was murdered at the behest of several members of the Privy Council, who feared that he might reveal them to be atheists.<ref>Trow, M. J. (2001). ''Who Killed Kit Marlowe? A contract to murder in Elizabethan England'', p. 250</ref>
* The Queen ordered his assassination because of his subversive atheistic behaviour.<ref>{{cite book|last=Riggs|first=David|year=2004a|title=The World of Christopher Marlowe|pages=334–337|publisher=Faber|isbn=978-0-571-22159-2}}</ref>
* Frizer murdered him because he envied Marlowe's close relationship with his master Thomas Walsingham and feared the effect that Marlowe's behaviour might have on Walsingham's reputation.{{sfnp|Honan|2005|p=348}}
* Marlowe's [[Marlovian theory of Shakespeare authorship|death was faked]] to save him from trial and execution for subversive atheism.{{efn|"Useful research has been stimulated by the infinitesimally thin possibility that Marlowe did not die when we think he did. ... History holds its doors open."{{sfnp|Honan|2005|p=355}}}}

Since there are only written documents on which to base any conclusions, and since it is probable that the most crucial information about his death was never committed to paper, it is unlikely that the full circumstances of Marlowe's death will ever be known.