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The Marliad

  a rap epic in progress about Christopher Marlowe and The Age of Shakespeare



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by David A More
www.marlovian.com

First


To all you "Shakespeare" fans out there, I say:
The Stratford actor never wrote a play,
No. Kit Marley is the man you quote--
Familiar lines from poetry he wrote,1
Like Hero and Leander, Lucan's First Book
(Translated from the Latin)--Have a look
At Ovid, too, and Venus & Adonis,
Rape of Lucrece, The Shrew, Merchant of Venice,
Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus,
The tales of Romeo and Juliet,
King Lear, King John, Cymbeline, and Hamlet,
Six King Henry plays, The Richards two,
The Tempest, As You Like It, Much Ado,
Twelfth Night, Winters Tale, and Othello.
In brief, most lines in the First Folio2
Of 'Shakespeare' plays, and many Sonnets too;3
As well as other verses you may know:
Whoever loved, that loved not at first sight?4
Have you ever heard this saw of might?5
It's one of many Christopher did write.6

Now I invoke Calliope, the muse
Of epic poetry for pleasing words to use,
And phrases fresh (like water clear and cold),
Plus a plot that's straightforward and bold,
To tell “the second greatest story ever told.”7
So, listen up, if you have ears to hear--
Kit Marley used the nom de plume "Shake-speare,"
And William of Stratford, a player (no more),
Didn’t realize whom he stood-in for:
(The greatest playwright of his time, for sure.)

None stood above Kit in dramatic art.
On top of that, he played a secret part
In England's Anti-Catholic War--a spy
Who gave good service to the Queen, no lie.
So why did he pretend to die? Here's why:

Marley's belief in Jesus Christ fell short
According to a slanderous report
Made by another agent of the court.
The hearsay was heresy--"dangerous" it said.
The upshot was a dagger in the head,
But Marley's "fearful end" did not mean dead;
His knife-fight death was faked by a few friends.
And Kit kept writing plays, as genius would;
While genial Will did what he could.
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Circles


Because Kit Marley was a literary genius
And trusted agent of the Queen, he was
Accepted in the high-brow company
Of Mary Sidney Herbert's muse, whose honey
Inspiration filled Kit's cup
Throughout his life, until his jig was up
And her brother Philip Sidney, poet-knight,
And Walter Raleigh's brilliant "School of Night",
And Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux,
(To whom the Queen Herself could not say 'no')
And Francis Bacon, giver of advice
To youthful Henry Wriothesley, Earl of great price,
Who was so kind to poets, and so nice,
That "Shakespeare" dedicated poems to him twice.

And Ferdinando Stanley, Derby's Earl of parts,
Patron of theatrical and catholic arts;
And Thomas Walsingham, Kit’s patron,
And Latin poet-scholar Thomas Watson,
And laurel-headed Georges: Deep Chapman,
Who honored Marley's wishes at the end,
And Jesting Peele, another writer friend,
Named Kit "The Muses Darling" with his pen.

And Philip Henslowe, theater impresario
(Whose notes reveal so much of what we know
About the London theater business then)
And his son-in-law, Edward Alleyn,
Who triumphed in the role Tamburlaine.

And George Carey, the Lord Chamberlain,
Whose famous company of acting men
(Led by the Burbage brothers at The Globe)
Included William Shaksper, Stratford's own,
Whose greatest role, as yet, has not been shown:
As secret literary front;
For a (said-to-be) dead man who didn't want
To be – nor could he be-- popularly known.
So Kit and William didn’t act alone,
Thanks to Thomas Thorpe and Edward Blunt,
Two publishers who knew of Marley’s stunt.

Our hero knew them well, before he fell
From grace into the everlasting(?) hell
That was devised to please his enemies,
Seeking, thereby, the gods (and God) to please,
While saving Kit from certain prosecution
For heresy -- and painful execution.
The equation was simple. Do the moral math:
Instead of ridding the great Marley’s mouth
Of breath—they banish him for life ‘til death,
Because his work was valued in small circles--
Of rich, free-thinking intellectuals
Such as the Sidneys, Walsinghams and Cecils,
Who all believed that Marley was a vessel
Filled with nectar, sweet and overflowing.
Mr. Marley, sir, your spear is showing:
Griped in an armèd hand; [yourself] behind
[You] leave unseen, save to the eye of mind.)
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What’s in a name?


If Kit is known to history as "Marlowe,"
Then why (you wonder) do I call him Marley?
To simply set the "poetry bar" low,
Because it sounds like Raleigh and Lord Burghley?
No--because he spelled it that way early
In his life, when he was brash and surly,
And his hair was bushy, kind of curly,
Well before receding like a wave
Or ocean tide, to hide his face, and save
His breath, and punish Marley just the same--
Through banishment and trashing his good name:
Changing Marley to MarLOWe on title pages,
And so his name's remembered for the Ages.
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Enter Polonius

Meet William Cecil, aka Lord Burghley
And Francis Walsingham--two measurers
Of probabilities, and weatherers
Of Catholic ‘Bloody’ Mary’s storm together.

William Cecil‘d been in power since
Elizabeth (in innocence) assumed her father's sins,
Ascending to half-brother Edward's throne
When she was 25 years old. Too young
To rule the land without advisers strong
And wise, to offer guidance and insight,
And thwart what stratagems the Catholics might
Devise to seize her doubtful Divine Right,
Since she was child of mistress, Ann Boleyn,
The second wife of Henry 8th, whose sin
Engendered a new Church. Henry no dope,
He made Bishops wealthy, like the Pope,
And expropriated Old Church properties.
A trend displeasing Catholic dioceses
From coastal Spain to France's Pyrenees.



Enter Elizabeth's Moor

The Principal Secretary of the Queen
Sir Francis Walsingham saved the Queen
From murder, twice uncov'ring treach'rous plots
By men in thrall of Mary, Queen of Scots.”
Elizabeth anointed him her “Moor,”
When France was mired religious war
In Paris, she appointed him Ambassador
To smooth discord between contending factions,
But the Catholics didn't trust him and took action--
Offing Huguenots in huge numbers
Waking up their leader from his slumber,
Throwing his dead body down to the street
From his bedroom window 20 feet,
Adding to the thousands nationwide,
The Duke of Guise believed God on his side.
Well, Walsingham was horrified,
Surprised no one supplied him advanced word
On what went down, before it all occurred.

So after that, the Catholics made him nervous,
He organized an English Secret Service:
To Italy and France his spies were sent
Where English-speaking Catholic converts went
To hear the Latin Mass, and in True Faith convent,
At seminary schools in Rome and Rheims
Where papists trained their undercover priests
To preach to English folks of Catholic Feasts,
And keep the Saints and Martyrs in their hearts
And Latin Mass in English-speaking parts,
Because a Catholic Queen was still around,
Presuming to Elizabeth’s disputed crown.
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Enter Christopher (and William)


Now let's go back to 1564,
The year the baby Christopher was born,
In the Cathedral town of Canterbury, Kent,
Where Queen Elizabeth occasionally went:
Where our “Shake-speare” truly got his start,
Exposed to music, poetry, and art.

Up north, in April the same year,
William was born to the Shaksperes
In a small village in Warwickshire,
Where her Majesty never appeared,
Because there wasn't much to see there;
Unlike romantic Canterbury, where,
Faithful pilgrims high and low were sent
To see the ‘holy blissful martyr’s’ monument.14

Like any boy, our hero early played
With toys and games, and sometimes disobeyed
His mother Kate, a Dover girl (portrayed
Perhaps in some of Christopher's first plays),
While John, his dad, made leather goods and shoes,
And paid his Canterbury cobbler dues,
So Christopher could enter The King’s School,
And not take up his father’s cobbler tools.

Some claim that Kit was Philip Sidney's page
In Paris --with him on that day of rage
(When Kit was 8, in 1572)
On the Feast of St. Bartholomew.
The Massacre at Paris is the play
Kit wrote in memory of that day.

Philip's page learned many things,
Which may explain how Kit got into Kings
At age 14, for a brief spell.
By all accounts his schoolwork did excel--
In careful reading of old Latin texts;
His singing; and facility with verse--
So well, Archbishop Parker blessed his purse:
(A scholarship-to-college worth)
And so, at 16, Marley headed north
To be a scholar of Divinity
And study Anglican theology
At stately Cambridge University,
In December 1580 A.D. --


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Meet William


A far cry from Will's biography,
120 miles north of Canterb'ry,
In podunk Stratford-on-the-Avon,
Where Will (arrayed in blood-stained apron)
Soliloquized while killing calves and capons.15

Nine years before, his dad had been on top:
As Stratford's Bailiff, an important job.
But John Shakspere's good luck went south,
So Will (another hungry mouth)
Dropped out of school at twelve or thirteen tops,
Following the downfall of his pops.

Whatever school book sentences Will learned
Occurred before his father's fortune turned --
Since no books were available , it's true,
For a boy to "home school" if he wanted to!
The printing press was then quite new:
Our modern public libr'y unheard of,
And William's parents didn't read a word of
English--or the languages of love.
He'd have to buy a book, or borrow from a friend
But his unlettered chums had none to lend,
And no bookstores could be found there then,
If he'd had sufficient cash to spend
On Latin poetry, a history tome
In Greek, or English tract to read at home,
If Will could read those antique tongues;
Unlikely, since his schooling wasn't long.

Tush. No matter. Soon, his ears pricked up
To Love’s music, between hiccups.

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Willy's pickle, 1582-85


Have you heard of Stratford William's Anns?
Engaged to one, but wed another without banns?
Well, first Ann Whatley got to Will,
Then but 18, and hot to spill
His seed into a wet and willing wench.
But soon Willie was called before the bench,
Because another Ann named Hathaway
Got William in the family way,
The two of them got married right away,
And daughter Sue was born in half a year.
By 1585, two more kids appeared:
(The twins, Hamnet and Judith, so-named
After a long-time neighbor and his dame--
No connection to the Hamlet play
Which hadn't yet been written, anyway.)

So there's our altar-hero, only 21,
Possessed of wife, three kids, and no books--none!
Which causes one to wonder, all in fun.
Perhaps our William joined an actors' troupe,
To 'scape the wife and baby poop.
Three kids under-3, at that young age,
Might spur a man to flee the cage,
And be a player on a Strange stage,
Or battle Spanish Catholics overseas.
(Low Countries war would be a breeze,
Compared to wife and three babies.)

No one is certain how he came into
Such prominence as he would later do.
For now, let's leave him at a meal with Ann,
The twins, and 3-year-old Susannah,
Or belching beer with friends for fun,
Or poaching Lucy's deer without a gun.
I'm poking fun at Will, but it's the truth:
His town was small, its residents uncouth.


Spanish relations

In the religious war for souls and land
In 16th Century England,
Between the Pope in Rome (named Sixtus 5th)
And the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth,
The Pope's most powerful ally was Spain's
King Philip 2, whose main concern
Throughout his 44-year reign
Was seeing England Catholic once again.

Philip proposed to wed Elizabeth,
Who told him not to 'hold his breath';
To her, the Spanish King was no great catch;
She didn’t want him in her royal snatch,
Or he might try to snatch her royal power,
And send her chief advisers to the Tower.

Rejected Philip ordered troops to France,
And to the northern river Lowlands,
Where Spanish Catholic soldiers shouldered arms
With aim to do French Protestants grave harm.1


Enter a Spy, 1585


While at Cambridge, Christopher was keen
To do official service for the Queen.
His study of Theology prepared him for
The role of spy in the religious war
To gain poor souls and garner rich terrain
In England, France, Italy, and Spain.
Cambridge provided fertile, common ground,
Where homegrown boys like Christopher were found
And groomed for the Elizabethan underground
By men behind the throne, protective of the crown:
By whom I mean Cecil and Walsingham
Who orchestrated deadly stings and scams
Against home enemies -- and those abroad --
Who sought to kill the Queen to please their God
And put the crown on Mary's Catholic head,
Should, suddenly, Elizabeth fall dead.


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Enter/Exit Sir Philip Sidney


Enter now Her Majesty's old lover,
Doughty Robert Dudley, Earl of L[eic]ester,i
Rustling all the soldiers he could muster:
3000 men, rifles, and horse enough
To join the foreign fray. For Huguenots
It was a new ball game. For English Prots
A hero (poet Philip Sidney) ‘made his name’
In love and war-- in battle against Spain.
And Robert Devereux dashed to the scene
The Earl of Essex, but 19, was keen
To bring the lowlife Spanish to their knees,
With step-dad, Dudley, in the Low Countries,
Where his friend and mentor Philip died
Of a bullet wound in his right thigh.

Courageously, his time on earth ended:
Love didn't kill Phil -- the battle at Zutphen did.ii

Yet he had time to write Frances, his wife,
(Daughter of Francis Walsingham besides)
Who, after lengthy boat and short horse rides,
Sat by her noble man, as he lay dying
In her arms. Frances, of course, was crying
When Phil gave Robert Devereux his sword,
Who in turn gave “Astrophil” his word
To kindly treat his wife in widowhood.

Eventually the widow and the Earl were wed,
Three families conjoined in marriage bed,
And Marley knew them all, it’s said.


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Degree to Disagree, 1586-87


No one is certain where Kit Marley was
Assigned during those early years, because
Not much was written down--except for this:
He did Her Majesty good service
In 1586, away from University,
Possibly at Rheims, two months or three,
Pretending to be Catholic, probably,
Or in the web of Babington, maybe.
In any case, the deans did not agree
That Marley should be given his M.A.
(Imagine Christopher’s shocked look,
After all the books he'd read.) It took
A haughty statement from Lord Burghley21
(And other Privy Counc'lors) to convey
Kit Marley’s service to Her Majesty
For University authorities
To grant Kit Marley his well-earned degree.

Burghley surely knew, what he’d been up to
During those weeks away from Cambridge U,
When a machiavellian coup de grace
Went down (to a saintly lady's loss).
Lord Burghley was Kit Marley’s main boss--
The Queen's top man--a Privy Councillor--
And, of Cambridge U, the Chancellor!


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Mary Queen of Scots I

Scotland’s Catholic Queen, by right of blood,
Stood next in line to England’s throne, some said.
Her co-religionists had sought to claim
The crown for Mary Stuart in God’s name.

As France's King Francis's widowed dame,
Marie returned to Scotland to be Queen,
Where life got gothic, like a movie scene!
In brief, her actions chafed the Scottish Earls --
Who chased her southward to a safer world:
To England, where her cousin 'Liz'beth ruled,
For refuge, but the unchaste Queen was fooled--
Imprisoned for no crime for twenty years,
Because of English Crown succession fears.

Elizabeth's advisers thought: "Mary's a slut,"
Although no charge of anything was brought
Against the shut-up Queen, ‘til she got caught
In a dirty machiavellian plot,
Set up by Secretary Walsingham,
Who orchestrated deadly stings and scams.

Babington Plot


Perhaps the saddest tales this saga's got:
Is that of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots,
Confined for 16 years within the walls
Of castles in North England, ‘though no law
Was broken by the Scots’ unbroken Queen
(Unvisited by royal kin, or seen
By young King James (Darnley’s and) her son.

Her plight much-moved Anthony Babington,
And 13 of his idealistic friends--
Young Catholics whom the very dangers led…
To grisly ends. Then Mary lost her head.
Talk about a harrowing tale! Here's how
The Virgin Queen’s men brought the harlot Queen down:

In 1586, Walsingham and Burghley framed
A double-cross on the above-named
Babington, by sending men to him one day--
Two spies who knew exactly what to say--
Namely, Nick Skeres and Mr. Robin Poley,
Who swore to God to love Queen Mary wholly,
Which Babington swallowed--hook, line and sinker,
(Not knowing Poley was a bloody winker,
A double-dealing Machiavellian thinker.)
So it was secretly arranged for words between
The Plotters and the imprisoned queen
To be conveyed in kegs of beer, concealed,
But intercepted to find treason well revealed!
Which panicked Babington, who tried to scram
And plea bargain with Francis Walsingham--
To no avail. Too bad. For Anthony & friends
Were given rope enough for gutsy ends:
First they were hanged, but kept alive,
Then sliced open, and quartered with knives,
Their entrails set aflame before their eyes,
And mutilated genitals stuffed in their mouths
For the titillation of the crowd.
Their property by law went to the crown.

For Mrs. Babington, tough luck.
Sir Walter Raleigh got her home and stuff
The families of the suckered men received
No succor from Lord Burghley or the Queen.
They lost their family heirlooms, land and homes--
All handed to the Queen’s well-favored groom:
Sir Walter Raleigh, courtier, to whom
The Queen gave much, forgetting Walsingham,
Who, after all, had brought about the scam!8
Queen Mary’s trial came six months later
The sentence was unnerving: "Decapitate her."


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Tichbourne's elegy




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The Road to Roanoke



Philip Sidney's funeral, 1587



Remember Philip Sidney's noble end
From a bullet wound at Zutphen?
It took six months to get his body in a vault,
For whatever reason, or whoever's fault.
Was it Philip's debts? Was that a pretext
To defer his burial ‘til February next,
Until the very week  the Queen of Scots was offed,
A funeral with heads of State well-coifed.

Sidney, the sonneteer, had briefly ruled
The poet scene! Oh yes, Philip fulfilled
The definitions of poet-courtier,
Political adviser, and brave soldier.
A hero for a Protestant nation,
His voice was heard against Spain's domination,
In favor of New World colonization.

He fully blessed Sir Walter’s colony
At Chesapeake, a brisk economy
To flourish mightily for years to come,
And to become a new "... emporium
For the confluence of all nations
That love or profess ...virtue or commerce.
And to stop the Catholic “axis's” advance:
The Spanish-Roman, Jesuit alliance
Which had the goal of global dominance.

Today, it seems more like a PR ploy
Devised by William Cecil's hunchbacked boy,
Or by Sir Francis Walsingham, himself,
To put his son-in-law’s cadaver ‘on the shelf’
For months, then have a funeral procession--
To scotch Queen Mary’s saintly execution
You see, the Realm required a new hero!
(Anglo-Prots 1, Roman-Cats zero).



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N.B. Poley and Skeres


A footnote to this telling tale is this,
I tell you now--or fail in this analysis:
Poley and Skeres, who hoodwinked Babington,
Six years later witnessed Marley's "killing" done
At Deptford, in a house of Burghley's kin.
That's all I'll say on Marley's death for now,
As to who, where, when, and how,
Because another subject must be sung--
About the Separatists, and one who hung
For Marley's benefit. It won't take long,

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Church vs Church-State


With the major Catholic claimant (Mary) gone
Another faction had to be undone:
Besides the roamin' Romans, men within
The English Church refused to say "Amen"
To hierarchic practices and rites
Not followed by disciples of the Christ.

For when the Protestants first put the crown
Upon Eliza's head, they soon put down
All doubts about church rites in every town,
Through a common prayer-book liturgy:
Meaning no preachers, just dumb clergy
Reading from the Book of Common Prayer
And puppet Bishops -- repetitious sayers
Of formulaic phrases, propped by Civil Law.
Many sought the prideful Bishops’downfall,
Including John Penry and John Udall,
And Henry Barrow and John Greenwood,
Who did everything on earth they could
To bring about religious tolerance,
As well as fellow Separatists, Puritans,
Congregationalists and Presbyterians.
These learned, dedicated preachers tried
To teach the Bishops better rules, supplied
By Christianity's New Testament:
Such as, God’s holy preachers need no vestment.


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Enter Canterbury Caiphas


The man Elizabeth had oversee
The task of silencing effectively
The opposition's voice, lived lavishly,
Like Royalty, a prodigal spendthrift--
A certain stiff Archbishop John Whitgift.23
Whose task it was to stifle all dissent
In print against the Church Establishment.

Archbishop John was quite a potentate
In charge of all the Anglican episcopate.
He even executed one some think a saint.
(Maybe you think it’s Marley, but it ain’t.)


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Welsh wizard


John Penry was a thorn in Whitgift's hide
Who stuck his Welsh neck out and tried
To sharply criticize Church polity
In The Exhortation and The Equity.
The upshot of John's argument was this--
Amend the Roman Catholic hierarchic
Structure of the English Church - and quick!

JP believed he could convince the Queen
To make the changes needed for a clean
Renewal of her Church establishment,
If given leave to voice his argument
Against the Bishops, in her Royal presence.
He hoped to give the prelates simple lessons--
Like the Gospels and Epistles teach,
And state the need for learned Christian preachers
Who speak Welsh in Wales, to native speakers.
(As Penry may have stated, tongue-in-cheek:
English ain’t the language that God speaks
In the land of daffodils and leeks.)

John Penry entered Cambridge when Kit did
When both of them were 16--kids
Intending to become men of the cloth
By working hard at school, avoiding sloth.
But John was not a literary "Wit"
Like Kit, a gifted classical poet,
Penry's eye fixed on a church pulpit.

The Welshman was a family man. His wife,
(Fair Eleanor Godfrey) and he gave life
To four sweet girls, one after another:
In successive years after they got together:
Safety, Comfort, Deliverance and Hope--
A source of strength for El, to help her cope
During the time that she was on the run
With John, in Scotland, fearing Whitgift's gun--
Which is metaphor, his real weapon
Was the royal Court of High Commission24
With powers like the Spanish Inquisition,
To stamp out anti-factions and division,
Through torture and confinement in a prison.
To overcome this state, was Penry’s mission:
Replace oppression with a true Christian vision,
Based on the Bible’s plan and admonition.


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High Court, Low Quartering


The Court of High Commission was set-up
By 12 Bishops in clerical get-up,
(Robes, big hats and staffs, that sort of stuff)
To force fanatic nonconformists to ‘shut up’--
To stop protesting the Official Faith.
At this High Court, no one pled 'the 5th':
Defendants had to speak against themselves,
Or give the name and deeds of someone else,
By means of painful torture if it helped
To unlock lips, or loosen silent tongues,
By stretching limbs of one in question, hung
For long stretches of time, taken aback,
By a contraption called 'the rack'.25

The standard punishment for dissidents
Was execution. Ancient precedent
Dictated hanging, disembowelment
And quartering. Or burning at the stake
Might be the fate for doctrinal mistake,
As with the “heretic” named Francis Kett,
A visionary preacher burned to death
For doubting Jesus (His Divinity), yet
"Blessed be God," Kett said, to his last breath.

And yet, the man Whitgift desired to get
His hands on most, was neither Penry, nor Kett,
But one who used the pseudonym "Marprelate,"
Whose satire mocked Whitgift, who tried to quell it
Literarily. And so I’ll tell it:


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Mar Who? 1588-90


Even as the Spanish launched Armada ships,
A landed enemy took pot-shots at Bishops,
In satirically persuasive essay tracts,
In which the writer revealed ribald facts
About the Bishops, making wise cracks
About their ignorance that couldn't be ignored!

Oh yes, "Martin Marprelate" made holy war26
On Archbishop Whitgift, and adjured
The Bishops under him, who lived like Kings,
(But didn't practice truly Christian things)
To change their ways, give up their gawdy rings.

Marprelate taunted Whitgift, urging “Sir John”
(“The Canterbury Caiphas”) to 'bring it on',
So Whitgift hired Thomas Nash's wit,
Who smartly answer Martin's words with it,
Out-quipping the satirical Marprelate
In a pamphlet called An Almond for a Parrot.
And then an all-out search of homes was made
To find the stealthy printer Walde-grave,
Detain suspects, confiscate the press,
Interrogate until someone confessed.

This plan was carried out with scant success:
Martin's identity remained unsolved,
Because so many people were involved.
Tom Nash believed that Penry was to blame-
And others have suggested other names.27
Some say Kit Marley wrote the first two tracts,
The other four by friends, to hide Kit’s tracks.28


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Martin, Anthony, and Robert


One more important fact must be men-shunned:
The first Martin Mar-prelate texts were penned
Expressly by the author for his friend --
A man of great learning--Anthony Bacon,29
Francis's brother, who'd many years ago taken
Leave of home for Switzerland and France,
In order to improve his circumstance,
By meeting deep thinkers and leaders there
Like Beza, Montaigne, and (Prince) Henry Navarre.

In world affairs, the Bacons had few betters
(As Robert Devereux's most shrewd abettors),
Advising Earls of 'court matters' in letters.

More on the Bacons and the Cecils later,
Because the curtain’s rising at the Theater,
In five-beat lines of rimed iambic meter:


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That's Entertainment 1576-88


Our windy Prologue states: “By Jove, this blows!
Enough about old England’s civil woes,
Let’s hear about those London theater shows.”
And so, with no further ado, here goes:

On stages far and near, stage-plays for years
Were done by companies of players
Under the patronage of wealthy peers,
From Oxford-, Pembroke-, and Derby-shire.
Each company pursued its own agenda:
Art for art's sake, or courtly propaganda.
Stage-plays could be 'morality' or 'mystery',
Conveying tales of Virtue or Church history,
While other plays were entertaining 'toys'
Performed at class establishments by boys.

The first theater was built in Southwark, London,
When Kit was 12, by James Burbage and sons:
The handsome up-and-coming actor, Dick,
And cunning Cuthbert, who kept books and fixed
The theater’s stage props when they broke
And even coached new actors who misspoke.
Young Cutty was a smart, ambitious bloke.)
The new establishment was named The Theater.
A decade later, a competitor
Named Henslowe built one on another street
(The Rose, he called it) with more seats.

You've heard of Philip Henslowe's Diary?
When Henslowe hired a play-writer, he
Would make a note, to know how much was paid
To whom, and how much money each play made
With entries back to 1591.
You might say Philip rose to the occasion,
Employing the Lord Admiral's acting men,
Featuring his son-in-law, Edward Alleyn,
Who triumphed in the role of Tamburlaine
On the brand new theater stage, The Rose,
For whom Kit Marley and the 'wits' wrote shows.

(By "wits" I mean Tom Nash and Robert Greene
George Peele and even Francis Bacon, lean
And mean, who teamed up for dramatic scenes
When patronage demanded--which made sense--
Well-written scripts commanded recompense.)


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The Earl of Oxfraud


The Earl of Oxford enters 'on cue' here:
Edward Devere. Was he “Shake-speare”
As his proponents say? It's problematic,
Since his roots were old aristocratic,
Although he had a flair for the dramatic.

At 12, young Edward lost his dad,
And gained the oldest earldom in the land.
But Oxford 17, turned out to be a cad--
The record shows his actions, mostly bad.
(I'd love to serve you up the ballsy tiff
Ned had with Philip Sidney at tennis.)
Have you heard he was a famous farter,
Who took a bow in that department?
Edward strove to please Her Majesty!
He entered jousts and capered entertainingly,
Until removed from court in 1581,9
When a maid of court had Edward's little one.

It’s true Ned paid for complimentary verses,
And scenes his group of players could rehearse,
His comedies were judged “among the best.”30
Read Ogburn if you want to know the rest.31
(My verses vaunt one greater than DeVere,
Kit Marley who morphed into Great Shake-speare:
Unless a well-versed Oxfordite can state
In poetry their candidate's hard case,
Accounting for the hard facts--zero--
That Ned DeVere was any kind of hero.)


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Tamburlaine the Great (1587-88)


Kit Marley soared to great dramatic heights
At 25, with Tamburlaine the Great,
About an atheist who conquers all
In fact, he never really has a fall!32
A Shepherd, who became a … puissant
And mighty Monarch, who by rare
And wonderful Conquests, and for his tyranny
And war, was termed was termed The Scourge of God,

In which we hear the Prologue proudly state

From jigging veins of rhyming mother-wits,
And such conceits as clownage has in pay,
We'll lead you to the stately tent of war,
Where you shall hear the Scythian Tamburlaine
Threatening the world with high astounding terms,
And scourging kingdoms with his conquering sword,
View but his picture in this tragic glass,
And then applaud his fortunes as you please.

A sequel came, by popular applause,
Because the general welcomes [it] receiv'd,
When he arrived last upon the stage
...Made our poet pen his Second Part,
Where Death cuts off the progress of his pomp,
And murderous Fates throw all his triumphs down.
Here (the play concludes)... let all things end...
Let earth and heaven his timeless death deplore
For both their worths will equal him no more!


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First things Fustian


A few choice words on old-time censorship.
For all my new age, post-mod, listenership:
The printing press was like the internet
To information-starved Elizabethans, yet
Those writers had no freedom to express
Themselves about forbidden subjects10
Like Elizabeth's future successor.
Who would the ruler be? Anyone's guess11
(Thanks to Henry 8, a royal mess.33)

A careful watch was kept by Stationers,
Who registered all manuscripts, while Players
Answered to Tilney, Master of Revels,
Who censored plays portraying social evils,
Like scenes of sudden government upheaval.
If a stage-play sounded critical
Of government officials, or political,
Or was perceived to be inimical
To church-state status quo, it had to go.
The players would perform a different show,
Or modify the scenes to please, just so.

On stage and print, despite such censorship,
A brilliant wit like Thomas Nash could slip
A dig, small heap of praise, or slyly hip
Allusion to some well-known person or event:
A playwright understood--to circumvent
The censor's strict intent, and still be relevant,
Meant cloaking "here and now" things of the Age
In past events and places on the stage.

It's said that Tamburlaine was Walter Raleigh,
And Polonius in Hamlet was Lord Burghley
The character Hamlet, the troubled prince,
Was really Scot King James. The hints
Were obvious to playgoers of ‘92
If they were ‘in on it’ and had a clue.
Bards borrowed plots and stories from the past,
To make it possible to write plays fast,
And hit the boards before a reference passed
Into oblivion, where nothing lasts.
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Willy make it? 1589


Shall we visit Willie, um, Shakspere,
At home in Stratford, poaching deer?34
Working as a glover, like his pere?
This we know for sure about our man:
Age 25, shacked-up with Ann,
Three little kids, and zero land.

Perhaps young William had a plan
To travel two days’ journey south
To London, England's largest town
And be an actor--learn to smile, frown,
And speak words by others written down.
Although his reading wasn't up to speed.
Within a decade, Shakspere had it made--
A one-tenth share of Globe Theater trade,
A big house in his town, up on a hill,
And London colleagues calling upon Will
To come up with a play occasion’ly,
Which he accommodated easily
(Because he knew a man who knew Kit Marley).

And now it’s time to tell a tale of Tom,
And Tom, and Tom, and Tom, and Tom…and Tom


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Too many Toms

A Dash of Nashe



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No Kydding


Poor Thomas Kyd: a playwright good enough
To be “among the best” among his peers
According to a list by Francis Meres.35
An early Hamlet play was penned by Kyd.36
Who wrote revenge plays like the Romans did.37
He also wrote two vengeful damning letters38
To Lord Puckering, the Keeper, while in fetters,
Implying Marley was a royal traitor,
A secret Scot's succession perpetrator,
And a violent arrogant blasphemer:
Tom Kyd, it seems, was quite a Marley-hater;
He died without a patron one year later.
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Dancing the Walsingham 39


The Thomas dearest to our hero’s breast,
A noble man, with right hand on his chest,
The Tom who liked Kit Marley’s poems best
(As “Shakespeare” publisher, Ned Blount, attests)40
Was Thomas Walsingham, a man of means
And culture, who was knighted by the Queen.

His entrance to this story is belated,
But Thomas Walsingham and Kit were fated
Early in their lives to meet as spies,
Two guys in their early twenties,
Hustling to make some Royal money.
Both of them were agents for Tom's cousin,
Master spy Sir Francis -- two of a few dozen.

At 28, Tom gained his dad's estate,12
Near London: land, big house, and ornate gate,
Where, four years later, Marley would be guest
When he experienced that “fell arrest” 41

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Paging Dr. Lodge




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Tom Harriot, Trumpter of Roanoke43




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Elementary Tom Watson (excerpt) 46


You want another Thomas? I got one:
Scholar, knave, and poet Thomas Watson:47 48
Who connected with Kit Marley often.
Until late '92, when Tom was in a coffin.

A lot like Kit this Tom was. "Shakespeare"
They said, was Thomas Watson’s heir.” 49


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Bradley duel, 1589


With all those Thomases touched on, we can
Return to Marley--hangin' on Hog Lane,
One London afternoon in '89,
A big-time playwright, feeling fine,
When he's accosted by a William Bradley,
Who’s furious at Kit's friend Watson -- badly
Wants revenge, but takes-on Kit instead.
The two of them begin to fight with swords
Then Tom shows up, and Bradley speaks these words:
“Art thou now come? I’ll have a bout with thee."
“I'll make worm's meat of thee,” Tom parries15
With sharp wit and rapier sharper still,
Which penetrated Bradley for the kill--
In self-defense—or so the two poets told
The jury and the judge, Sir Roger Manwood--50
Tom did what any self-protecting man would.
Despite this, both got sentenced to do time
In Newgate Prison, for the uncivil crime
Of murder and disturbing Hog Lane peace.
Tom Watson got four months, and Kit three weeks.

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Still in Stratford


So we don't lose track now, here's the scam
Back in '89, the Shakspere man,
25-year old Will-I-Am,
Was still in Stratford with his fam.,
While Penry pined in Scotland on the lam,
And Marley was in London in a jam--
In ‘rapic’ poetry, with lines enjambed,
As creeks at flood will overflow a dam.
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Wits, Poets, Patrons 1589-ish

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Exit Sir Francis Walsingham (1590)
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Watson, Marley, Mary

When Tom Watson was buried in the ground53
A lengthy Latin poem by him was found
For Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke,
The wealthy muse, whose praises poets spoke.

To dedicate the book Tom made her,
Christopher waxed Latinate and graced her
Delia born of laurel-crowned race...
You’re imparting now to [my] crude pen
Breathing of high and mighty rage...
So will I (Kit wrote)...on the first page
Of every poem invoke thee ...to my aid.
Mary Herbert's muse was for the Ages,
Kit testifies, in lofty Latin phrases,
And promises to extol his muse's praises.


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Fuzzy Wool on The School of Night


You’ve heard of Walter Raleigh's "School of Night"?
Science-minded types who tried light
The darkness of religion (as State-stated):
“Renaissance Men” like Thomas Harriott
And Henry Percy, called "the wizard Earl"
And the watercolor artist, White,
And the scientist, Richard Hakluyt,
Adventurous men, of rectitude and worth,
Exploring farther reaches of the mind and earth.
This “School” held session in the Renaissance,
When history, philosophy, and science
Tore the veils of ignorance, with self-reliance.

In the dispute between those who knelt
In English pews and those Catholics, who felt
The Roman Pope was due obedience,
The Scholar-Knights did not sit on the fence:
To them, the Christian faith was sheer nonsense--
The fuzzy wool that gathers on the Lamb
Of God--and church religion but a sham.

Elizabethan England was a cauldron
Of free-thinking dissident expression.
Kit Marley harped on ignorant religion,
Made fun of it in plays and conversation,
And brought to bear his power of persuasion,
(Some would say his power of perversion)
By showing outright fabrication,
In the holy Book of Christian nations.

The word of one with no motive to deceive
Sayeth and verily believeth,
That one Marlowe is able to show more
Sound reasons for atheism than
Any divine in England—(or man)
Is able to give to prove divinity
& that Marlowe told him (in sincerity)
That he hath read the Atheist Lecture
To Sir Walter Raleigh and others.

We know of Marley's lecture from a letter:
Remembrances of Chumley's words and matters.
It seems that Kit spoke potently against
The Scriptures and The Trinity nonsense,
Based on old religious arguments,
And backed by scientific evidence.


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Coining, 1592



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Enter Anthony Bacon, Jan. 1593




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Penry 1590-92


When we last saw John Penry in this tale,
Archbishop Whitgift 'hot on his trail'--
The Welshman fled to Scotland for a spell,60
With four young daughters, and his wife El.
But Penry, with a fervent quill, wrote on:
Theses Genevenses, was translated by John
And learned tracts against the Angli-cons.

In September '92, back to London
Because John got a special invitation
Asking his family's participation.
In planting seeds for a new nation,
Joining with the Stepney congregation.
In a few months, John faced incarceration,
Trial, and a death sentence for “treason.”

His righteous words disturbed the peace
Of Whitgift and his Bishops in their fleece.23


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Arrested Development


They captured John in March of '93,
And marched him into church-state custody,
Since private words discovered in his study
Implied Her Majesty to be ungodly.
John said he didn’t mean it, but too late,
His sentence was to hang, asphyxiate,
Unless some high-placed friend could obviate
The punishment, as had been done for Udall,
The theologian Separatist, that Fall.
But things did not look promising at all:

In April '93, John Greenwood and Henry Barrow
Separatists, who talked the straight and narrow
Path of righteousness, were executed
Their crime? “seditious books” distributed.

Intervention couldn’t save them: They hanged.
Their fellow followers were shaken. They sang
New hymns to Him who Saved all nations.24


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Cursus, foiled again



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Venus & Adonis and Hero & Leander



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Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Great Price



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Greene, with envy 1592



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Lewd Verses, April, 93


Archbishop Whitgift hated Kit's attitude
In Tamburlaine of godless rectitude:
His hard-core atheistic point of view.

What was the Defender of the Faith to do?
A hack scratched some verses on a church
Invoking Marley's hero to besmirch
The poet's name. A crude and “lewd”
Offensive poem by Richard Baines, who'd
Earlier been linked with Marley to the crime
Of coining, but now counterfeited rime:

“You strangers that do inhabit in this land,
“Note this same writing, do it understand.
“Conceive it well, for safeguard of your lives,
“Your goods, your children, and your dearest wives.”

For forty-nine more lines71 the Huguenots,
(Dutch Protestants) were damned by this have-not
In wretched verses signed by "Tamburlaine,"
As though by Kit, but actually by Baines.
Which prompted Councilors to action fast
A warrant was issued for the author’s arrest.


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No Kydding


Remember Thomas Kyd? He ‘took the fall’
For writing those lewd verses on the Wall.
His house was searched, his documents inspected,
Under a pile, they found the unexpected:
An essay-excerpt on the heresy
Of Arian (who denied the Trinity,
Maintaining only ONE divinity).
Tom Kyd denied the document was his:
“It must be Christopher Marley's,” he says,
"We shared a writing chamber for a year,72
And Marley must've left that paper here.”

But, tragically, Tom Kyd was ‘taken in’,
For torture and intense interrogation
While Christopher enjoyed a brief vacation
Away from deadly plays and London plague
At Walsingham’s estate at Scadbury,
With Thomas and his well-red-headed Audrey,
George Chapman, Matt Royden, and the bawdy
Serving man of Walsingham, named Frizer
Who later helped commit Kit Marley’s murder.

The poet read his manuscript to friends
About two mortal lovers at the end
Of courtship: Hero and her hunk, Leander,30
When who drops in, but Sheriff Henry Maunder,
And Kit’s mouth dropped. He knew he was a goner.

Yet hanging, disemboweling, or being burned
Like Francis Kett,73 was not the fate he'd earned
By being the Queen’s agent for eight years,
And writing plays as great as early “Shakespeare’s.”


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Star Treatment


No record now exists (or ever will)
Of his examination by the Council,31
Archbishop Whitgift must've spoken first
Of all Kit Marley's enemies, the worst.
Yet no one dropped the other shoe,
And so Marley was freed without ado,
On one condition: that he promise to
Remain available in future days,
In case the Star Chamber had more to say.

Within ten days, Kit Marley turned up “dead.”
Of a two-inch stab wound in his head,
Yet --even after this—poor Thomas Kyd
Was kept and tortured on the rack
So he would ‘dish the goods’ on Kit. In fact,
Tom wrote of Marley’s blasphemy and jests
(Like Jesus loving John the Baptist best)
And of his plans to go to Scotland (spying,
Or sucking up to James, to be twice king)
In letters to Lord Keeper Puckering.

So why was Puckering so fixed on Marley,
While the poet walked away Scot-free?
Why wasn't Marley also put to rack,32
Instead of asked politely to come back?
It makes no sense, unless the Council gods
Gave Christopher a triple-headed nod,
A secret ‘off-the-books’ covert arrangement,
Involving banishment, life-long estrangement.
And just to ‘seal the deal’, make sure it stuck,
They’d kill him with a feathered quill-pen’s stroke.


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Backroom deal


Who orchestrated Christopher’s release?
Did Devereux, the Earl of Essex, plead
Kit’s case to soften-up the tough old Queen?
Had Lord Burghley coughed-up politic advice?
He’d bailed out Kit before--not once, but twice!
Would not great men help cushion Marley’s fall?
Sir Walter Raleigh joined with Devereux that Fall
To save the preacher Nicholas Udall.74
Would they do the same for Kit? Stand tall?
No reason why not. No reason at all.

Imagine this closed-door bedroom scene:
Lord Burghley counsels mercy from the Queen.
"Banished for life," she answers, sounding mean.
“Like that poet from Rome--Ovid, the lover,75
Away from my realm this Marley goes forever."

A sentence with a precedent, in fact--
A month before, the Council passed an Act
Aimed at non-conformists' banishment
Under certain circumstances, which leant
Some legal pretext to Marley's punishment.

And John Whitgift, the Archbishop, he got
Kit Marley's voice silenced for good, he thought.


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Suicide Hero

Perhaps you wonder, was it necessary
To kill Kit Marley legally? Yes, very!
Exile was not severe enough, back then,
For one espousing “anti-Christian” doctrine
(Although Marley was not the anti-Christ
He did mock hypocrites and criticize
Some biblical mistakes and tall-tale lies.)

So death alone would do--or a good sham.
But whose decision was the Deptford scam?
Francis Bacon’s? Thomas Walsingham’s?
Or was the hoax the poet’s own idea?
Self-abnegating rite of suicide?
The death of public self by legal quill,
A quasi-execution by act of Will?
Classical heroes played out such behavior:
Suicide like that of Christ, the Savior,
But with a philosophic twist to savor:
Like poisoned Socrates, or chaste Lucrece,
(Who killed herself on purpose, to erase
The stain of Tarquin’s tyranny and sin.)
Or the Latin poet (Seneca's kin),
Who wrote of Roman Civil Wars--Lucan:76
Who 'took his medicine' and didn't hide,
When ordered by the law to suicide
For plotting death to Emperor Nero.
Perhaps Kit chose the same—to be a hero.
Or, if you like, try this scenario:


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Faked Death scenario

At Essex Place, May 25th, at night,
A richly-furnished room in candlelight,
Kit Marley hears the sentence of his fate--
Something he didn’t quite anticipate:
"Banished-to-death” the Earl of Essex states,
“By order of the Queen, so save your breath,”
...Banish[ed], Kit says, Be merciful, say ‘death,’
(Like in some William Shakespeare book)77
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death. Do not say "banishment."
“Banishment sure beats the alternative,”
Says Essex, “It's like death but more furtive.
Your death is what Archbishop Whitgift wants
To satisfy Her Majesty.” “That cunt,”
Said Francis Bacon, “If I may be blunt:33
Methinks a little literary hoax,
Will let you keep on writing plays for folks
With an invented name, and a new home34
In Italy, near Rome, for years to come.”

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What's In a Name?


“A nom de plume,” Kit mused, “I must. I Will!
Will has an edge of action done with skill.
William. Whilom. Formerly. At times
My lines of verse were pointed, like a lance
My words sharp swords shaken at ignorance.
My quill a spear enforcing thunder-claps . . . . 78
“I WILL (Achilles-like) shake spears again mayhaps,
Be known in print as Will-I-Am-Shake-speare’
Reviser of old plays of Kings like Lear;
As rime-royal poet extraordinaire,
The man behind the grave tale of Lucrece.
The Roman woman raped, who saved face--
And found peace-- by suicide. A trace
Of my past life I'll leave in poems and plays
My face unseen, save to the eye of mind.

“A man named Will Shakespeare, we'll try to find,”
Your age-- 29 --with face unlined,”
Said Francis Bacon, brilliant mastermind,
As he studied Walsingham’s behind.79


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The Plan


At Essex House that night, rough plans were made
For Christopher to be stabbed in the head
By Walsingham’s close confidante and fixer,
Frizer, Audrey Walsingham’s adviser.

But not Kit's head, another’s would be struck:
A man his age, a prisoner out of luck.
I mean, John Penry, the reforming ‘Saint’
Nearby in Newgate prison, seeking aid
From both the Earl of Essex and Lord Burghley,
Asking help, so he’d treated fairly.

John had no clue whatever of the need
They had for a cadaver that could bleed
From a two-inch knife-wound in the head:
A lifeless ‘stunt-man’, so to speak, instead
Of Marley (lying nere the bed, as stated)
Of course the corpse of John Penry would do
For the jury of 16 to view:
He was the age and status of our hero,
The chances of discovery were zero:
Since eyewitnesses were seasoned spies35
Who made a lifelong living telling lies,
And the Coroner, one-of-the-guys.80


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Handy Danby


Although his written pleas gave Penry hope,
Unfortunately, for John, no soap:
No matter how persuasive his appeal,
His fate, like Kit’s was permanently sealed
By a machiavellian ‘backroom deal’
To substitute the Welshman’s just-dead corpse
At Marley’s murder inquest, in short course,
And the man who had dead bodies handy
The Royal Coroner, named William Danby,
As trustworthy a man as can be, surely,
A longtime colleague of Lord Burghley.

His task was simple: render an opinion
On cause of death, after an inquisition.
And just in case the facts should leave some doubt,
The Queen herself made sure to spell it out,
A few weeks afterwards, in legal parlance
To state that Ingram Frizer’s act of violence
Was done to Christopher in self-defense.


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The Old Switcheroo


So here's the version I am weaving
On May 29, in the early evening,
(The night before Kit Marley's sudden end
Only two miles away, in Deptford Strand.)
With no notice to his wife, or warning,
John was taken to St. Thomas Watering
Quickly, for slow hanging, but no quartering. 36
(Archbishop Whitgift did the ordering.)

John's wife and 4 daughters of course were worried;
They didn't get to see where he was buried,
Because his corpse was carted that same night
To ‘stand-in’ as the victim of a knife-fight
24 hours later -- after rigor mortis
Ran its stiff-to-slackened-muscles course. 81

The witnesses all swore that Marley 'got it'.
"Self-defense," they lied. The jurors ‘bought it’.
Thanks to William Danby, no one caught it.


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Baines' Note


Although Marley was dead in the world's eyes,
Archbishop Whitgift wasn’t satisfied,
Kit's nemesis Dick Baines was authorized
To list Kit’s blasphemies and bad-taste jokes
Like loving boys and pipe tobacco smoke,
And scientific doubt about the holy Bible
(Its time-frame being wholly unreliable)
And the new church liturgy not viable.
Baines swore Kit admired Catholic Mass,
Thought Protestants were hypocrites and asses.
This 'dangerous ... mouth must be stopped', he warned,
The kind of stuff that got old Whitgift's goat!
You can read it for yourself, quote for quote.82

But note! The Note was copied for the Queen:
Phrases and dates were changed. What does this mean?
Treasonous and lewd remarks were cut,
And the date Kit's mouth finally got shut
Doesn’t fit the date he was interred.
Plus "Violent and fearful death" was altered
To "sudden and fearful end of his life.” Key words
Removed: “violent” and “death.” which blurred
The true result of Kit's last day in Deptford
On the last day in May with careful wordplay.
Historian Nicholl suspects deliberate fudging,
A "tidying up" to remove some smudging,
But Nicholl's view of Christopher is grudging.
Either the Queen was blatantly deceived,
Or, Her Majesty also believed
Kit Marley's second-life to be worth saving,
Despite free-thoughts, and sometimes misbehaving.

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Conclusion?


False History tells the “Willliam Shakespeare” story:
An actor writing plays for cash, not glory,
While Kit Marley was murdered in a brawl
About a bill for food and alcohol;83
And Ingram Frizer got a royal pardon,
And England got it’s own exiled Bard,
And Marley's name was stained with sland'rous mud:
They said, at death, he cursed the name of God!
Aye! The bad ink "Christopher Marlowe" got
Inspired sheets of plays without a blot:84
Great Tragedies and Comedies with plots
About false death, exile and reconciliation, 85
And History plays about the English nation,
Renowned today for their supremacy,
(Obtained by Will Shakspere in secrecy)
Revealing Marley's re-invented self:
You'll find them on the 'William Shakespeare' shelf.

TO BE CONTINUED... (June 2010)

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Copyright © 1999, 2000,2001,2002, 2010 David A. More

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

END NOTES

2The collection of Shakespeare plays, printed in 1623. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Folio

3154 sonnets were not included in the collected plays of 1623. They were collected and printed in 1609. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare's_sonnets

4http://www.bartleby.com/100/137.html

5 http://shakespeare.mit.edu/asyoulikeit/asyoulikeit.3.5.html

6 see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Marlowe#Works

7 The story “Greatest Story Ever Told” written by Fulton J. Sheen. ... In 1993, I coined the phrase “second greatest story ever told” for a movie treatment I wrote called “Passing Brave” which got shopped around by Allan Nevins of Renaissance Agency in 1993.

8http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Marlowe#Atheism

10 “Walsingham was one of the small coterie who directed the Elizabethan state, overseeing foreign, domestic and religious policy, and the subjugation of Ireland.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Walsingham#Serving_Elizabeth_I

11“In 1570, the Queen chose Walsingham to support the Huguenots in their negotiations with Charles IX. Later that year, he succeeded Sir Henry Norris as ambassador to France, seeking to prosecute a close alliance between England, Charles IX, the Huguenots, and other European Protestant interests in support of the nascent revolt of the Netherlands, provinces of the Spanish Crown. When Catholic opposition to this course resulted in the death of Coligny and the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, his house in Paris became a temporary sanctuary of Protestant refugees, including Philip Sidney. He returned disappointed to England in April 1573.” - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Walsingham#Serving_Elizabeth_I

12 The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris described: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew's_Day_Massacre

13Sir Walter Raleigh “(1552 – 29 October 1618) was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, and explorer who is also largely known for popularizing tobacco in England.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Raleigh

14http://www.scifac.ru.ac.za/cathedral/spire/may07/martyr.htm

    15 According to John Aubrey, the dramatist's father "was a butcher & I have been told heretofore by some of his neighbors, that when he killed a Calfe he would do it in a high style, and make a speech." 

http://www.donatopresents.com/shakespeare/killcow.html

17 And was not Astrophil in flowering rime
by cruel Fates cut off before his day,
Young Astrophil, the mirror of our time,
fair Hyales chief joy, til his decay?
When late a dreaful Lyon in his pride
descended down the Pyranean mount,
And roaring through the pastures far and wide,
devoured whole Belgian herds of chief account:
Stout Astrophil incensed with sole remorse,
resolv'd to die, or see the slaughter ceased:
Then fenst with fire and sword, with manly force
he made assault upon the furious beast.
But of this tale teares d[r]owne the latter part:
I must return to Meliboeus fall
Who mourning still for Astrophil's depart,
forsook his friends, and lost himself withal.
Alas too soon by Destins fatal knife
Sweet Meliboeus is depriv'd of life.

19 The three families: Devereux, Sidney, Walsingham

20 British actor Herbert Lom, Enter a Spy: The Double Life of Christopher Marlowe, 1971

21in 1587 the Privy Council ordered Cambridge University to award Marlowe his MA, denying 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". This from a document dated 29 June 1587, from the Public Records Office - Acts of Privy Council. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Marlowe#Spying

25http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rack_(torture)

26http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Marprelate

27 Job Throgmorton, Sir Roger Williams.

28  Prof. Jean Jofen

30 A foolish fantasy once fueled by Meres... http://www.elizabethanauthors.com/palladis.htm

33

34http://www.shakespeare.org.uk/content/view/684/623/

35http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palladis_Tamia

36http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Hamlet

37 Such as The Spanish Tragedy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spanish_Tragedy

38http://tinyurl.com/Kyd-Letters-to-Puckering

40In 1598 Shakespeare publisher Edward Blount dedicated Marlowe's posthumous poem, "Hero and Leander". Blount wrote that Walsingham "bestowed many kind of favors", upon the poet in his lifetime "with good countenance and liberal affection". LINK TO COMPLETE TEXT.

41The arrest warrant stated that Marley was staying at Thomas Walsingham's estate.

42 "As You Lie, Kit" by David A More. First published in Marlovian newsletter #12. The essay is  online in html format. ... http://www.marlovian.com/essays/asyouliekit.html

43 http://www.nps.gov/fora/trumpter.htm

45This was said of Harriots true report.

47Watson plays a prominent part in the novel A Dead Man in Deptford by Anthony Burgess, in which he is a close friend of Christopher Marlowe. In the book Watson introduces Marlowe to Sir Francis Walsingham and he also contributes to several of Marlowe's plays. “ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Watson_(poet)

48 Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning, pp. 219-226, Chapter 20 “Fictions and Knaveries”

49 At Cambridge, W. C, in his " Polimanteia," 1595, in a marginal reference wrote, "All praiseworthy Lucrecia, sweet Shakespeare, wanton Adonis, Watson's heir." http://tinyurl.com/Footnote-The-Reckoning-Nicholl

50In 1992 Marlowe wrote Latin verses to commemorate the passing of Roger Manwood. The English translation seems to drip with sarcasm.

52 Legend of Damon and Pythias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damon_(mythology)

53Spenser is supposed to have alluded to the untimely death of Watson in Colin Clouts Come Home Again, when he says: "Amyntas quite is gone and lies full low, Having his Amaryllis left to moan"...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Watson_(poet)

54“tells the story of Amyntas' love, and eventual winning, of Phyllis, and is therefore chronologically the first part of the earlier epic.

56In the little seaport town of Flushing an English possession, was full of Englishmen. Marlowe lodging in a chamber with two to other Englishmen in the little sea-port of Flushing, at the mouth of the Schelde river. A town ceded by the dutch in return for eliz’s military support against spanish invaders.

57Take author Charles Nicholl’s word: The Reckoning, chap. 25, pp. 234ff

58From Robert Sidney, Philip's brother, to Robert Cecil. ... http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/flushing.htm

59Anthony was met by Nicholas Faunt and Thomas Lawson and told that brother Francis had prepared a room for him at Gray’s Inn. DuMaurier, 63.

60 In January 1590 his house at Northampton was searched and his papers seized, but he succeeded in escaping to Scotland. There he published several tracts, as well as a translation of a learned theological work known as Theses Genevenses. Returning to England in September 1592, he joined the Separatist Church in London, in which he declined to take office, though after the arrest of the ministers, Francis Johnson and John Greenwood, he seems to have been the regular preacher. He was arrested in March 1593, and efforts were made to find some pretext for a capital charge. Failing this a charge of sedition was based on the rough draft of a petition to the queen that had been found among his private papers; the language of which was indeed harsh and offensive, but had been neither presented nor published. He was convicted by the Queen’s Bench on the 21st of May 1593, and hanged on the 29th at the unusual hour of 4 p.m., the signature of his old enemy Whitgift being the first of those affixed to the warrant.

61 See Review of Patrick Cheney. Marlowe's Counterfeit Profession: Ovid, Spenser, Counter-Nationhood

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb060/is_1_34/ai_n28811068/?tag=content;col1

62 “[Ovid] is considered a master of the elegiac couplet, and is traditionally ranked alongside Virgil and Horace as one of the three canonic poets of Latin literature.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovid

<>63Cheney makes a meticulous case for "a three-part cursus of lifetime poetic achievement [for Marlowe] in the tradition of Ovid and Virgil; the literary outdoing of his rival Spenser (as well as the completion of Ovid's failed cursus); and the creation of a counter-Spenserian notion of nationhood.

<>    Cheney argues that, choosing the Ovidian in preference to the Virgilian model of lifetime poetic achievement, Marlowe proved himself first as an amatory poet (translating Ovid's Elegies and writing "The Passionate Shepherd"), next as a tragic playwright (surpassing, with five plays, both Spenser and Ovid's sole, lost tragedy, Medea), and finally as an epic poet (translating Lucan's First Book and beginning Hero and Leander). In the process, neo-pagan Marlowe challenged Spenser's Christian classicism, Spenser's ideal presentations of heterosexual marriage, and finally Spenser's participation in the nationalistic cult of Elizabeth. In the sly echoes and revisions of Spenser that are everywhere evident in Marlowe's work, Marlowe glamorizes sensual, often homo-erotic love in preference to Christian caritas, and suggests that free-thinking, independent, questioning scholars and artists, rather than aristocrats bound to venerate the monarch, embody the legitimate national spirit: a "counter-nationhood." Ibid.

65All of the poems and plays are were printed after Marley's official death in 1593. publication...

66“A complex, kaleidoscopic work, using constantly shifting tone and perspective to present contrasting views of the nature of love.” - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_and_Adonis_(Shakespeare_poem)

67“At the age of seventeen he was presented at court, where he was soon counted among the friends of the earl of Essex, and was distinguished by extraordinary marks of the queen's favor. He became a munificent patron of poets: Nashe dedicated his romance of Jack Willon to him, and Gervase Markham his poem on Sir Richard Grenville's last fight. His name is also associated with Barnabe Barnes's Parthenophil and Parthenope, and with the Worlde of Wordes of John Florio, who was for some years in his personal service as teacher of Italian. “

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wriothesley,_3rd_Earl_of_Southampton#Early_life

69Greene joined Watson and Marlowe and Kyd as writers who died young ... they were the rock stars of their day.

71http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/libell.htm

72 “There is a real possibility that a Marlowe/Kyd collaboration happened. The work of Tom Merriam and Brian Vickers suggestsEdward III may be that play.” http://marlowe-shakespeare.blogspot.com/2010/05/kyd-marlowe-shakespeare-who-wrote.html

74In October, 1591 "[Raleigh] joined with Essex in saving from execution the brilliant Puritan clergyman, John Udall....Raleigh was but one of several prominent layman who believed a grave injustice had been done, but it was he, above all others, who was responsible for saving Udall's life by his intercession with the Queen." (Willard M. Wallace, Sir Walter Raleigh, 90. See also BIRCH, Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, I, 621; Thompson, Ralegh, 81-82)

75“In 8 CE, Ovid was banished to Tomis, on the Black Sea, by the exclusive intervention of the Emperor Augustus, without any participation of the Senate or of any Roman judge,[14] an event which would shape all of his following poetry.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovid#Exile_to_Tomis

76Roman poet Lucan wrote insulting poems about Nero, and later joined a conspiracy against the Emperor. “When his treason was discovered, he was made to commit suicide ... at age 25.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucan#Life

77 Romeo and Juliet

78Tamburlaine, (3.2.80)

79That Sir Francis Bacon was homosexual is discussed: http://www.glbtq.com/literature/bacon_f.html

81Hoffman Prize winner Peter Farey discusses the Penry cadaver in his essay “Marlowe's Sudden End” reprinted online: http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/sudden.htm#72

82http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/baines1.htm

84Jonson speaks of the players as saying of Shakespeare that "he never blotted out a line,"  http://www.sourcetext.com/greenwood/jands/03.htm

85These are some of the most used themes in Shakespeare's plays.