Eleanor Bull, widow
Described by Nicholl as a distant "cousin" of Lord Burghley's. Her
home, where the meeting between Marlowe and company allegedly took place,
had a lovely garden where the four men reportedly spoke quietly for many
hours. It has been suggested that her home, located in the busy port of
Deptford, was a "safe house" for agents crossing the sea to Europe and returning.
Perhaps a role for Ellen Burstyn.
Robert Poley
We know that Robert Poley was a top operative in the Privy Council's
spy network, and, as a double agent, played a key role in uncovering the
Babington Plot. No less an authority than the astute Robert Cecil,
wrote to a Privy Council colleagues just one year before the inquest,
"I have spoken with Poley and find him no Fool" (Boas, 113). Poley himself
established his credentials as a prevaricator when he told an old adversary,
"I will swear and forswear myself rather than I will accuse myself to
do me any harm" (105). Boas calls him "the very genius of the Elizabethan
underworld." Too bad Robert Shaw of Jaws fame is dead. He'd be my choice
for Poley.
Nicholas Skeres and Ingram Frizer
Little is known of Nicholas Skeres. But, Boas thinks him "to be a
regular jail-bird" (Boas, 111). He was probably the "Skyrres" who was in
Poley's company on August 2, 1586 when Poley was working on the Babington
Plot. And in 1589 there is evidence of a payment to him for carrying important
letters between the Court and the Earl of Essex. In 1591 he describes himself
as Essex's man. He was part of what Nicholl calls the "underworld" of Elizabethan
secret service. Later, in 1593, after the inquest into Marlowe's death,
Skere's is associated with Frizer and Thomas Walsingham in a legal wrangle
over a swindle gone wrong.
A.D. Wraight describes how in July, 1593, Skeres and Frizer swindle
a country bumpkin in the name of a "gentlman of good worship," who turns
out to be none other than Thomas Walsingham. The case came to trial in 1598,
but the transactions took place only a few weeks after these same two gentlemen
were involved in the at Deptford. Wraight recounts the details in the pictorial
biography In Search of Christopher Marlowe.
The actors to play the roles of Skeres and Frizer? Let's give it to
the Kevins: Bacon as Skeres, Costner as Frizer.
YOU DECIDE
- IF the event occured exactly as described in Danby's inquest (as
many staunch Stratfordians maintain).
- OR (as Charles Nicholl, and other staunch Stratfordians believe)
Marlowe's murder was orchestrated by the Earl of Essex and abetted by
Marlowe's friend, Tom Walsingham, the very man to whom his poetry was
dedicated
five years later.
- OR, Christopher Marlowe's death was staged by Walsingham, Essex
and others to accomplish two things: 1) save Kit from the clutches of
Archbishop John Whitgift, the terror of free thinkers and
reformers. Queen Elizabeth's chief enforcer of religious uniformity. and
2) allow for his continued writing and service career.
Come back on May 30 and you can register your vote below.
In the meantime, brush up on your Marlowe!
