A Catastrophe in the World of British Literature

"He was not of an age, but for all time." So wrote Ben Jonson in his dedicatory verses to the memory of William Shakespeare in 1623, and so we continue to affirm today. No other writer, in English or in any other language, can rival the appeal that Shakespeare has enjoyed. And no one else in any artistic endeavor has projected a cultural influence as broad or as deep.

OR HAVE WE?

The Real Shakespeare?

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 recognized as boy when 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.


Very little is known about literature’s most famous playwright. We know that the King’s New Grammar School taught boys basic reading and writing. We assume William attended this school since it existed to educate the sons of Stratford but we have no definite proof. Likewise a lack of evidence suggests that William, whose works are studied universally at Universities, never attended one himself!

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. 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 skilful 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.

Marlowe in Exile? 1. A.D.Wraight's Research A Marlowe/ Shakespeare Debate PageDid Christopher Marlowe die at Deptford in 1593? The respected author and Marlovian scholar A.D.Wraight thinks not. A hypothesis on the life of Christopher Marlowe after the events at Deptford has been put forward in her book The Story that the Sonnets Tell1. An earlier book by this author In Search of Christopher Marlowe2, written in collaboration with Virginia Stern, is accepted as a definitive reference on Marlowe before the Deptford incident. A.D.Wraight collates earlier research into (a) the Coroner's report of the Inquest on Marlowe's death and (b) the background of the people involved, and concludes that his murder was faked. This raises the question, what happened to Christopher Marlowe next? Wraight has analysed the 154 Shakespearian Sonnets in a new way with meticulous detail and believes she has identified the poet as Marlowe. Moreover she believes we can plot with some certainty his period in exile after a 'faked' murder and the varied emotions he experienced, amongst which despair at the distance from all he loves, and the injustice and inexorability of his fate, predominate. A.D.Wraight has grouped all the poems according to their subject matter and believes she has identified the true meaning and identities of the "Dark Lady" and "Mr. W.H.". She believes that Thomas Thorpe, the publisher of the Sonnets, deliberately confused his readers by altering the chronological order of the Sonnets, mixing up the subject matter and order of composition to prevent the identification of the real poet, a fugitive in continual danger. Scholars have long considered that the Sonnets could be autobiographical since many of them are written in the first person; therefore they appear to tell the life story of the author. The dedication in the Shake-speare Sonnets (the hyphenated name suggesting that it was a pseudonym), present puzzles that have long taxed scholars. Who was Mr W.H.? And who was the "Dark Lady"? Wraight agrees with Leslie Hotson's solution3 to these puzzles.His suggestion that the cryptogram which forms the dedication to the Sonnets identified William Hatcliffe as Mr W.H.and that Luce Morgan, a disgraced courtier, was the Dark Lady, (the term "black" was used by Elizabethans in reference to this lady's profession). These two people provide further clues in identifying the author of the Sonnets as Christopher Marlowe since Hotson was able to show that both were known to Marlowe. Wraight honours Hotson for his work and continues where he left off.

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