Chapter I

The arrest, on May 12, 1593, of Thomas Kyd, the first of the great Elizabethan dramatic poets, on the grave charges of atheism, of meddling in dangerous matters of state, and of publishing seditious libels tending to incite insurrection and rebellion in the English capital, had far more important causes and much more far-reaching consequences than have hitherto been suspected.

Among the causes which led to the inhuman torture on the rack and the untimely death of the popular dramatist, we must reckon--if my reading of the history of the period be right--the idyllic love of one of the most remarkable couples of whom we have any record, the fierce and vindictive resentment of England's greatest queen, as well as the fantastic ambitions and exalted dreams of one of the most gifted and brilliant men of all time.

Among the consequences of the passions thus brought into conflict, we must include the non-completion of the revision of one of the best and most characteristic historical dramas of the period--the tragedy of _Sir Thomas Moore_.[1] This play, undoubtedly written with political intent, was being rushed to completion by no less than six of England's most virile and most versatile poets: the veteran playwright, Anthony Mundy, young Thomas Heywood, fat Henry Chettle, kindly Thomas Dekker, industrious Thomas Kyd, and one--out of all whooping, the best of the group--who has not yet been identified and whom some very able scholars consider to have been none other than Shakspere himself.[2]

But the non-completion of the play was only a trifle in comparison with the effects Kyd's arrest had on his career as well as on that of the marvellous Christopher Marlowe, and therefore on the history of English letters. That its completion and performance would have affected the political history of the world in any way may well be doubted.

The more or less immediate circumstances leading to the imprisonment of "sporting Kyd" were these:

Living conditions in London, owing to the increase of population and to unwise legislation, were very hard on the native artisans, mechanics, petty tradesmen, and apprentices. As is usual in such cases, the presence of thrifty and prosperous foreigners was bitterly resented by the natives. This resentment had for several years taken the shape not only of public disturbances and riots, but of admonitions to the unwelcome aliens, mainly refugees from France and Belgium, to get out of the country. Unobserved by the authorities, during the small hours of a night in May 1593, some dissatisfied citizens posted up in various sections of the city placards which warned the foreigners to depart, with bag and baggage, before July 9. One of these posters, only a fragment of which has come down to us, was found on the wall of the Dutch churchyard. It read:

_You strangers, that inhabit in this land, Note this same writing, do it understand; Conceive it well, for safe-guard of your lives, Your goods, your children, and your dearest wives._

The Privy Council--in reality, the National Government--had for more than a year been protesting against the outrages perpetrated on the foreign residents and had solicited the Lord Mayor of the city to apprehend the disturbers and to seek out and imprison the agitators.[3] Their Lordships went so far as to instruct the Mayor to have the person guilty of having written the "libel" apprehended and tortured (though torture was no part of the English legal system) if he did not disclose his meaning and purpose and the identity of his accomplices. This was in the early part of April, 1593. But the Mayor, whose sympathies were evidently with the natives, made no arrests. On April 22, the Privy Council[4] again considered the matter and appointed a special commission "to examine by secret means who maie be authors for the saide [seditious] libelles." Less than two weeks after this, a highly alliterative and bombastic placard was displayed in London in which "the beastly Brutes, the Belgians, or rather Drunken Drones, and faint-hearted Flemings," as well as the "fraudulent Frenchmen" were ordered "to depart out of the Realm of England." Six days later, on May 11, the Council--fearing international complications even more than domestic broils--ordered another commission to use "extraordinary pains" (the equivocal wording may have been intentional) to apprehend the malefactors and to "put them to the Torture in Bridewell and by the extremitie thereof, to be used at such times and as often as you shall think fit, draw [!] them to discover their knowledge concerning the said libells."[5]

* * * * *

The very next day, May 12, 1593, officers of the law entered the study of Thomas Kyd with a warrant for his arrest and made a careful search of the premises for documents of a seditious nature. Inasmuch as it could not have been the literary qualities of the posters--verse tests had not yet been discovered--which made the authorities suspect Kyd, we are almost compelled to assume that he had been betrayed to the Commission by an informer. That Kyd probably thought so will appear from what follows. Whether his arrest was due solely to his connection, real or supposed, with the minatory placards, or whether it was also due to his share in the authorship and contemplated production of the incendiary play of _Sir Thomas Moore_, or both, it is impossible to say. But the combination is certainly suggestive.

The search, it is fairly certain, brought to light nothing of a seditious or politically objectionable nature. But that did not save Kyd; his arrest had evidently been determined on by the Government. Searching his chamber, the officers discovered something else, something which furnished them with an excuse for arresting him and conveying him to Bridewell prison. This discovery consisted of three sheets of paper (written in a neat and easily legible hand) which the officers regarded, or pretended to regard, as a treatise on atheism.[6] The possession of such a document was in those days a dangerous matter, certainly far more dangerous than to have in one's possession literature attacking the French and Dutch residents of the city. The Privy Council frowned on atheism, even though they often dared not prosecute those they suspected to be guilty of the offence.

Fortunately these three sheets of paper have been preserved. The back of the third sheet bears the following inscription, in all probability in the hand of the officer making the arrest: "12 May 1593/ Vile hereticall Conceiptes/ denyinge the deity of Jhesus/ Christe o^r Savior fownd/ emongest the paprs of Thos/Kydd prisoner/."

In connection with this almost lawless arrest three significant facts stand out in bold relief:

1. The alleged treatise is, as I have tried to prove in my book on the _Moore_ manuscript,[7] in Kyd's handwriting.

2. Kyd, though he must have been aware of the seriousness of the charge against him and of the danger he was in, refrained from entering a general denial in his defence. He could have maintained--correctly, as Professor Boas informs us--that the papers were not atheistical; that they were, in fact, "a defence of Theistic or Unitarian doctrines," and that they were (as Professor W.D. Briggs[8] has recently shown) only a transcript of material contained in John Proctor's book, _The Fall of the Late Arrian_ (published in 1549). Instead of making this perfectly obvious plea, Kyd, apparently accepting the officer's characterization of the documents, chose a most remarkable line of defence. He asserted that these papers were not his, that the alleged disputation had, as a matter of fact, emanated from Christopher Marlowe. Thereupon the officer making the arrest added the following words to the previously quoted notation on the back of the third page: "wch [papers] he [Kyd] affirmethe That he/ had ffrom Marlowe."[9] That these words were added some time, probably a few days, after Kyd's arrest, may be inferred from the following circumstances: the ink in which they were written is not that of the rest of the memorandum (Boas), and the writing, though in the same hand, is slightly different (larger and freer).

3 The cautious wording of the allegation regarding Marlowe must be noted. Kyd was careful not to say that Marlowe had written the alleged atheistical treatise. Had he done so, Marlowe would unquestionably have been able to prove that the penmanship was not his. Kyd did not say that the opinions expressed in the document were Marlowe's, nor even that the papers were Marlowe's property. All he said was that he "had" them from Marlowe. From all of which it is fairly certain that when these memoranda were written, Marlowe was still alive and that Kyd thought it best to be cautious in attacking his former associate.

How he came into possession of the dangerous document, Kyd explained subsequently (the date is not known) to the President of the Star Chamber, Sir John Puckering, in a letter in which he pleaded for his Lordship's assistance in recovering his former position in the service of Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange,[10] and in which he tried to minimize his relations with the atheist Marlowe. He wrote to his Lordship: "When I was first suspected for that libell that concern'd the state, amongst those waste and idle papers (wch I carde not for) & wch vnaskt I did deliuer vp, were founde some fragments of a disputation, toching that opinion [atheism], affirmd by Marlowe to be his, and shufled with some of myne (vnknown to me) by some occasion of o^r wrytinge in one chamber twoe yeares synce."[11]

It will be noticed that, even though Marlowe was dead when this letter was written, Kyd did not say that the alleged atheistical papers were in Marlowe's handwriting. He contented himself with vehemently reiterating his innocence and with alleging that Marlowe, who (he said) made no secret of his atheism, had shared his room with him and that in this way their papers might have got mixed. How long they had shared one chamber he did not say; but it is clear that he was trying to give the impression that it was for only a very short time ("some occasion"), even though that makes it extremely improbable that any of Marlowe's papers should have accidentally got mixed with his without either one having noticed it, and even more improbable that he would not have returned them to his associate or thrown them out.

From Kyd's unnecessarily venomous attack on the character and opinions of "this Marlowe" (as he contemptuously designates him) it seems reasonable to infer that Kyd hated Marlowe and thought that it was he who had betrayed him to the Council. How otherwise, Kyd might have thought, would the authorities have selected his study for such a search, and known what they evidently knew--the very day after the special commission had been appointed. It was impossible for the officers to have pounced on him by chance. Fretting under his supposed betrayal by his quondam room-mate, he wrote to Sir John: "his L[ordshi]p never knewe his [Marlowe's] service, but in writing for his plaiers, ffor never co[u]ld my L[ord] endure his name, or sight, when he had heard of his conditions [_i.e._, of his atheism], nor wo[u]ld indeed the forme of devyne praiers vsed duelie in his L[ordshi]ps house, haue quadred [--squared] w[i]th such reprobates. That I sho[u]ld loue or be familer frend, w[i]th one so irreligious, were verie rare, when Tullie saith _Digni sunt amicita quib[u]s in ipsis inest causa cur diligantur_, w[hi]ch neither was in him, for _p_[er]son, quallities, or honestie, besides he was intem_p_[er]ate & of a cruel hart...."

The inference that Kyd suspected Marlowe to be the author of his woes is further supported by the fact that in a document[12] which was almost certainly written during Kyd's incarceration, and therefore before the letter to Puckering, the prisoner declares--in his own handwriting--that it was Marlowe's custom "in table talk or otherwise to iest at the deuine scriptures/gybe at praiers, & stryve in argum[en]t to frustrate & confute what hath byn/spoke or wrytt by prophets & such holie men/He wold report S[ain]t John to be o[u]r savior Christes Alexis.[13] J [--I] cover it with reverence/and trembling that is that Christ did loue him w[i]th an extraordinarie [--unnatural] loue."[14]

That Kyd thought he had been betrayed to the Council by an informer is clearly implied in his attributing his troubles to an "outcast _Is[h]mael_" who "for want [_i.e._, in hope of reward] or of his own dispose to lewdness [_i.e._, wickedness] had ... incensed yo[u]r L[ordshi]ps [the Council] to suspect me" (quoted from his letter to Puckering).

But that is not all. The words "outcast _Ismael_" in the above quotation serve, almost without a doubt, to identify Kit Marlowe as the informer who betrayed Kyd to their Lordships of the dreaded Star Chamber. In the epithet "outcast" Kyd probably meant no more than that Marlowe's atheism made him a social outcast, but it is not at all impossible that he had something more specific in mind. In his letter to Puckering he says that the patron whom he and Marlowe served could not endure Kit's name "when he heard of his conditions." In the one-page memorandum or affidavit which Mr. Brown discovered, Kyd calls God to witness that this pious patron had commanded him, "as in hatred of his [Marlowe's] life and thoughts," to break off associations with one who entertained such "monstruous opinions." This considered, it would not be at all surprising if we should some day discover that Lord Strange had ordered the troupe of players bearing his name to sever its relations with the atheist poet. That the designation of the informer as an "Ishmaelite" (a term which the _Standard Dictionary_ defines as "a person whose hand was against every man") refers to Marlowe's rashness in attempting "soden pryvie iniuries to men"[15] (Kyd's words) seems almost a certainty.

On May 18, 1593--six days after Kyd's incarceration--the Privy Council issued an order for Marlowe's arrest. It must always remain a matter for great regret that the minutes of the Council, as well as the warrant for Marlowe's apprehension, are silent about the nature of the charges against the younger poet and the identity of his accuser. But, considering the close similarity between the accusations brought against him in the other documents in the case and the offences enumerated in the Kyd memorandum, there can be but little doubt that Marlowe's arrest was due solely to Kyd's charges against him. So certain was Kyd that it was his erstwhile associate who had betrayed him to the authorities that he retaliated by divulging what he knew about him and even by threatening to involve the advanced spirits who permitted Marlowe to share in their freethinking and philosophical debates.

On the 20th day of May Marlowe was under arrest, but not imprisoned. Though at liberty, he was prohibited from leaving the precincts of the city and was "commanded to give his daily attendance to their Lordships [the Council] until he shall be licensed to the contrary."[16] This, it must be granted, was so extraordinary an act of leniency on the part of the Council that, in connection with its knowledge, as the records show, that Kit was to be found at "the house of Mr. T. Walsingham [one of the chiefs of England's secret service] in Kent," we are surely warranted in inferring that the Council did not take the matter too seriously, very probably because it knew that Marlowe was one of the Queen's secret agents, and perhaps, too, that he had been responsible for the arrest of his vindictive accuser.[17]

Just what happened during the first few days after Kyd's arrest can only be conjectured. From his memorandum to their Lordships of the Council--which, in all probability, only repeats what he had told them orally--we may infer that, under the stress of "paines and vndeserved tortures," he had spoken of "men of quallitie" (members of the nobility) who kept Marlowe "greater company;" but, even though he admits that he can _p_[ar]ticularize (--name) some of these, he carefully refrains from divulging their identity. He evidently hoped that some of these men of quality would come to his rescue.

After Kyd had been given a preliminary treatment in Bridewells, perhaps with the "crewel garters" spoken of in Shakspere's _King Lear_, he began to realize that those who were in peril from him were not rushing to his rescue. He there-upon ventured a little further and certified to his torturers that Marlowe "wold _p_[er]swade w[i]th men of quallitie" [still unnamed] "to goe vnto the K[ing] of Scots whether [--whither] I heare Royden is gon and where if he [Marlowe] had liv[e]d he told me when I saw him last he meant to be." This was clearly intended to inform the Council and the Queen that some of the foremost men in England were in secret communication with King James of Scotland. To understand the significance of this, we must remember that Queen Elizabeth, ever since the execution of Mary, was in constant fear of what James might do to avenge his mother's cruel death, and that he, on his part, was engaging in a succession of intrigues to secure what, by virtue of his hereditary right and his Protestantism, was virtually already his.[18]

That the Commissioners, or torturers, succeeded in breaking down Kyd's resistance, real or pretended, and "drew" from him the names of some at least of Marlowe's associates, is deducible from his letter to Puckering, wherein he says: "ffor more assurance that I was not of that vile opinion [atheism], Lett it but please yo[u]r L[ordshi]p to enquire of such as he conversed w[i]thall, that is (as I am geven to vnderstand) w[i]th Harriott,[19] Warner,[20] Royden, and some stationers in Paules churchyard, whom I in no sort can accuse nor will excuse by reason of his companie." Though the men he names are not the "men of quallitie" he hints at in his memorandum, their mention enables us to designate the men he had in mind, ("the men higher up," our journalists would say). These men of quality, who associated with Marlowe and the three distinguished men just named, were none other than Sir Walter Ralegh, Edward Vere[21] (seventeenth Earl of Oxford), Henry Percy[22] (Earl of Northumberland), Sir George Carey (afterwards Lord Hunsdon), and others.[23] These men constituted a not very popular coterie which a Jesuit pamphleteer, Father Robert Parsons, branded as a "school of atheism" in a book entitled _Responsio ad Elizabethae Reginae Edictum contra Catholicos_ (published in London in 1592). It is generally held that the incomparable Ralegh, at one of whose London houses these brilliant and daring spirits--scientists, poets and philosophers--held their weekly discussions, was the leader of the group, and that for a while his powerful influence with the Queen protected them from molestation and perhaps even from prosecution. Kyd, be it borne in mind, was not one of this circle.

The astonishing thing in this whole matter is Kyd's daring to appeal to the testimony of members of Ralegh's unpopular group of freethinkers at a time when Sir Walter himself, never popular either at Court or with the masses, and still in disgrace with the Queen about his liaison and marriage, was by general report condemned for atheism. From certain documents preserved at the British Museum,[24] we know that the Government, alarmed at the spread of atheism, was willing to make a scapegoat of Sir Walter. Not long after the events we have just narrated, Ralegh was, as a matter of fact, under surveillance, and the Court of High Commission ordered him, his brother, and some of their intimate friends, to be examined (at Cerne, in Dorsetshire) on March 1, 1594. "The examinations," says Mr. Boas,[25] "do not seem to have been followed by any proceedings against Ralegh, but the discovery [which he made during the hearings] that even his private table-talk was not safe from espionage may well have helped to hasten him forth on his adventurous quest for an El Dorado across the southern main." It is worth noting that during the examinations Harriott[26] was several times referred to and that once he was spoken of as an "attendant" on Sir Walter Ralegh.

Kyd was by no means the only one to accuse Marlowe. On Whitsun Eve, May 29, 1593, the Privy Council received a "Note"[27] from one Richard Baines[27] (not "Bames"), charging Marlowe, the associate of cutpurses and masterless men, with the foulest blasphemies. In this document, in the informer's own hand, Baines accuses Marlowe of maintaining that Harriott, the brilliant scientist and inventor, whom the fool multitude regarded as a magician, and whom he describes as "Sir W. Raleighs man," could "do more" than Moses who "was but a Jugler." He goes on to aver that "on[e] Ric[hard] Cholmley hath Confessed that he was perswaded by Marloes Reasons to become an _Atheist_." The seriousness of this charge will be realized when it is noted that this Cholmelie (or Chamley) was known to have organized a company of "atheists" as well as to have entertained revolutionary political designs, and that Baines[28] further charged Marlowe with having claimed "as good a Right to Coine as the Queen of England."

How Marlowe would have met these grave charges, each punishable by death, must remain a matter of conjecture. He was not destined to reply to them, however, for on the very next day, May 30, this "famous gracer of tragedians" was assassinated by Ingram Frizer, "gentleman," a notorious rascal and a proved habitual swindler. The only witnesses to the homicide were one Nicholas Skeres and one Robert Poley, the former a cheat and jailbird who had been associated with Frizer in some of his nefarious schemes, and the latter a spy.[29] Here, it will be acknowledged, was an excellent trio for a contrived murder. I say "contrived murder" because, from Mr. Hotson's account of the matter, it is clearly apparent that the story told at the Coroner's inquest by Skeres and Poley (the only witnesses to the assassination) is incredible.[30] The circumstances considered, it seems to me much more likely that on that fatal Wednesday, Marlowe was lured[31] to Eleanor Bull's inn at Deptford Strand, was wined liberally till he fell into a drunken stupor; the time being ripe and Eleanor Bull safely out of the way in another part of the building, Ingram Frizer deliberately plunged his dagger into Marlowe's brain to a sufficient depth to cause his instant death.

The assumption that Marlowe's death, contrary to the Coroner's report (_q.v._), was premeditated assassination, not accidental homicide in self defence, is warranted by the following considerations.

1. The two wounds on Frizer's head were too slight to have been inflicted by a man in a rage wielding a sharp dagger. In this connection we must not overlook the significance of the fact that no physician seems to have been called in to dress Frizer's wounds, which were probably too slight to require medical attention. That each of the two wounds on Frizer's head was two inches long and a quarter of an inch deep is so curious a phenomenon as to warrant the assumption that they were self-inflicted. A dagger thrust from above downward or from below upward is much more likely to make a punctured wound of variable depth than an incised wound two inches long and only a quarter of an inch deep. (Parenthetically it may be noted that the number "two" seems to have been a favorite with the Coroner in this case.)

2. The only witnesses to the fatal fray were two disreputable friends of the man charged with the killing.

3. Frizer and his friends kept Marlowe company in the tavern, or the grounds adjoining it, from about ten o'clock in the forenoon until night. None of these men explained to the Coroner's jury how he happened to be idle that day and disposed to loaf at Eleanor Bull's tavern all those hours. There is nothing in the evidence to show they had ever been there before or even that they knew the place. And it certainly is strange that both Poley and Skeres (who, as far as the Coroner's evidence shows, may not have been acquainted with Marlowe) should have expected Marlowe to pay for their suppers.

4. It is incredible that Marlowe should have been lying on a cot and that Frizer should have had his back toward him while they were engaged in an acrimonious discussion.

5. The Coroner's statement that Frizer, while sitting in a chair and wrestling with a man in bed behind him, inflicted "a mortal wound over his [assailant's] right eye of the depth of two inches & of the width of one inch" is so improbable as to throw doubt on the whole of his account of the matter.

6. Neither Skeres nor Poley made the slightest attempt to interfere with or to part the combatants. There is no indication that they attempted to summon help.

7. The Coroner apparently made no attempt to find any other persons who ate or drank at Eleanor Bull's that day and who might have testified to the behavior of this remarkable quartet. How was it that none of the habitués of the place, a cheap tavern frequented mainly by sailors, were called upon to say what they knew or saw? The Coroner's strange silence suggests that Frizer, Skeres, and Poley probably managed to keep Marlowe most of the day in a private room and out of view of any of Eleanor's patrons. We must not overlook the significance of the fact that the Coroner reports that Marlowe and his associates "met together in a room in the house ... & there passed the time together & dined" and that, after walking about in the garden belonging to the house, they "returned ... to the room aforesaid & there together and in company supped."

8. The Coroner's failure to get Eleanor Bull's testimony is a highly suspicious feature, especially in view of the fact that the law required him to question the neighbors and any other persons who might throw any light on the homicide. It would surely have been of the utmost importance to know whether there were any evidences of a struggle, _e.g._, overturned chairs, broken dishes, the position of Marlowe's body, etc. As matters stand, we do not even know for certain whether the dead Marlowe was discovered in bed or on the floor, whether there were bloodstains in the bed, whether the Coroner found the dagger in the wound and in the clutch of the deceased--surely very material facts in an inquiry regarding a possible murder. And yet Eleanor Bull did not testify. The only likely explanation for this fact is that the assassin or assassins kept Marlowe in a private room in a remote part of the house until they were ready to dispatch him. Having got him sufficiently drunk, one of them thrust a dagger into the sleeping Marlowe's brain just above his right eye.

9. That the Coroner's inquest was a perfunctory matter and that his story cannot be accepted as a faithful account of what actually transpired is sufficiently evident from the facts that he made no inquiry into how much liquor Marlowe had imbibed and that he was willing to believe that a two-inch wound above the eye would result in instant death. One who knows the anatomy and pathology of the human brain knows that it is almost impossible for death to follow immediately upon the infliction of such a wound.[32] That Marlowe's brain--"the abode of the poet's vaulting imagination," as Hotson poetically calls it--was not examined is, therefore, certain, and yet the Coroner says that the wound was two inches deep and one inch wide. Such a wound, if made horizontally, traversing the eye socket, would not have involved the brain for more than half an inch, and would not have affected any vital area; if the wound was made vertically, the injury would have been in the frontal lobe of the brain and would not have proved fatal, certainly not immediately. To have caused instant death the assassin would have had to thrust his dagger horizontally into Marlowe's brain to a depth of six or seven inches--and that could not have happened if Frizer and Marlowe had been wrestling as the witnesses described. Portions of the frontal lobe have been shot away without fatal consequences. Bullets have been known to enter the brain through one temple and to come out through the other without causing death. The Coroner's "grim tale" of Marlowe's violent and untimely end is, therefore, not a true account of what happened.

* * * * *

Taking all the known facts into consideration, we must, it seems to me, conclude (1) that Marlowe was assassinated while he was asleep, probably in a drunken stupor; (2) that while he was in this condition, Ingram Frizer thrust his twelve-penny dagger, which he had brought with him for the purpose, deeply into Marlowe's brain; and (3) that the Coroner was influenced by certain powers not to inquire too curiously into the violent death of an "outcast _Ismael_".[33]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Harl. MS. 7368, at the British Museum.]

[Footnote 2: That the sixth man, hitherto known as "D", was _not_ Shakspere, I have tried to show in my books, _Problems in Shakspere's Penmanship_ and _The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore_. The latter of these presents my case for the dating of this play (the spring of 1593) as well as for the identification of Heywood, Chettle, and Kyd.]

[Footnote 3: For additional details regarding the quarrel between the aliens and the natives, the reader is referred to my _Booke of Sir Thomas Moore_.]

[Footnote 4: _The Acts of the Privy Council of England_, 1901, vol. 4, pp. 187, 200, 201, 222.]

[Footnote 5: See _The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore_, pp. 96-98.]

[Footnote 6: They were rediscovered by Professor F.S. Boas in 1898 and are preserved in the British Museum, where they bear the mark _MS. Harl. 6848, ff. 187-189_. Professor Boas reprinted them, in reverse order, in his book, _The Works of Thomas Kyd_, London, 1901. His book contains a facsimile of the first page of the alleged treatise. A correct transcript of all three pages and a facsimile of the second page appear in my _Booke of Sir Thomas Moore_.]

[Footnote 7: _Op. cit._, pp. 43, 47.]

[Footnote 8: "On a document concerning Christopher Marlowe," in _Studies in Philology_, April, 1920, vol. 20, pp. 153-159.]

[Footnote 9: It is not impossible, however, that the endorsement was the work of a clerk of the Privy Council or of the prison to which Kyd was committed.]

[Footnote 10: That the Lord whom Thomas Kyd served, probably in the role of secretary, was Ferdinando Stanley, I have shown in my _Booke of Sir Thomas Moore_, pp. 38-41.]

[Footnote 11: The whole of this interesting and important letter (_B.M., MS. Harl., 6849, ff. 218-19_) is finely facsimiled (but not accurately transcribed) in Professor Boas' book. The reader will find it in my book, pp. 108-11.]

[Footnote 12: _B.M., MS. Harl. 6848, ff. 154._]

[Footnote 13: In Virgil's _2d. Eclogue_ Alexis is a beautiful youth beloved by the shepherd Corydon. This therefore amounts to a charge of homosexuality.]

[Footnote 14: This important document was discovered by Mr. F. K. Brown in 1921 and is described in _The Times Literary Supplement_ (London), June 2, 1921, p. 335. It is finely facsimiled and accurately transcribed in Dr. W.W. Greg's _Literary Autographs from 1550-1650_. See also my book, _op. cit._, pp. 38, 41-44, 52.]

[Footnote 15: This probably alludes to the felony with which Marlowe was charged in 1588. (See Professor Hotson's essay, "Marlowe among the Churchwardens," in the _Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1926, vol. 138, pp. 37-44.)]

[Footnote 16: _The Acts of the Privy Council_, May 20, 1593.]

[Footnote 17: That Marlowe was a spy in the service of the Queen and of Sir Francis Walsingham we know from the labors of Professor Hotson (_cf._ the work cited, pp. 63-4) and of Miss Eugenie de Kalb (_cf._ "The Death of Marlowe," in _The Times Literary Supplement_, May 21, 1925, p. 351).]

[Footnote 18: _Cf._ _The Dictionary of National Biography._]

[Footnote 19: Thomas Harriott, one of the "three magi" who frequently attended the Earl of Northumberland in the Tower, had acknowledged himself to be a deist He was a member of Walter Ralegh's group of freethinkers.]

[Footnote 20: Walter Warner, the distinguished mathematician, another one of the Earl of Northumberland's "three magi," was also one of Ralegh's group. Some think that Kyd may have meant William Warner, the poet, the author of the highly praised _Albion's England_.]

[Footnote 21: Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford and Lord Great Chamberlain, was one of the most talented, eccentric, extravagant, irresponsible, and intersting men of the Age of Elizabeth. He was born in 1550 and died in 1604. He was inordinately quarrelsome, temperamental and reckless, and therewithal endowed with a high degree of musical talent and literary ability. Men of letters found him friendly and helpful, and he was the patron of a company of actors. He was as erratic in his relations with the Queen as with others, and in 1592 he fell out with her because she refused to grant his petition for a monopoly to import into England certain oils, wool, and fruits--a refusal which doomed him, for financial reasons, to live in retirement. This is the man who, in the opinion of some writers, was the "real Shakespeare."]

[Footnote 22: This was the "wizard Earl," as he was popularly known, whom the Roman Catholics had instigated to assert and fortify his claim to the English crown and who fearlessly protested against King James' severity in his treatment of Ralegh. He was, in all probability, the first owner of the famous _Northumberland Manuscript_. For an interesting and entertaining account of this eccentric patron of the arts and sciences, consult the _Dictionary of National Biography_.]

[Footnote 23: In their edition of _Love's Labour's Lost_ (1923, p. xxxiii), Mr. Dover Wilson and Professor Quiller-Couch erroneously include the name of the ingenious Stanley, fifth Earl of Derby, in this group. George Chapman, the authorities say, was one of the coterie; Shakspere was not, as far as we know.]

[Footnote 24: An account of these documents (_MS. Harl. 6842, ff. 183-90_) and extracts from them were published by Mr. J.M. Stone ("Atheism under Elizabeth and James I." in _The Month_ for June, 1894, vol. 81, pp. 174-87) and by Professor Boas (in _Literature_, Nos. 147 and 148).]

[Footnote 25: _Works of Thomas Kyd_, p. lxxiii.]

[Footnote 26: Harriott was again coupled with Marlowe in a letter (_Harl. MS. 6848, f. 176_) written to Justice Young by a spy concerning Cholmely and his "crues." We may recall that at Sir Walter's trial, in 1603, Lord Chief Justice Coke branded the accused as "a damnable atheist" and denounced him for associating with that "devil" Harriott.]

[Footnote 27: This "note Containing the opinion of on[e] Christopher Marly, Concerning his damnable Judgment of Religion and scorn of gods words" (_Harl. MS. 6848, fol. 185-6_, also _Harl. MS. 6853, fo. 320_) has been reprinted in an expurgated version by Boas (_op. cit._, pp. cxiv-cxvi), by Ingram (_op. cit._, pp. 260-2) and in Mr. H. Ellis's "unexpurgated" edition of Marlowe's _Plays_ in the _Mermaid Series_ (1893, pp. 428-30). It is transcribed, without abridgement, in my _Notes and Additions to 'The Books of Sir Thomas Moore_.']

[Footnote 28: Concerning Baines we are told by Mr. Havelock Ellis (_op. cit._, p. xliv) that he "was hanged at Tyburn next year for some degrading offence," but, as Mr. Ellis says, "there seems no reason--while making judicious' reservations--to doubt the substantial accuracy of his statements."]

[Footnote 29: That Poley was a "secret agent" we know from Conyers Read's _Mr. Secretary Walsingham_, 1925, II. 383. For additional information about him, see Mr. Chambers' review of Hotson's book, in _Modern Language Review_, 1926, vol. 21, pp. 84-85.]

[Footnote 30: For a translation of the Coroner's report, see pp. 71-75.]

[Footnote 31: William Vaughan, who has given us (in his _Golden Grove_, 1600) the most nearly authentic account of the assassination, tells us that Ingram invited Marlowe to Deptford "to a feast." Neither Frizer, Skeres, nor Poley, be it remembered, gave the Coroner any explanation of how they happened to meet Marlowe that morning and why they did not leave him out of their sight all day.]

[Footnote 32: For expert medical opinions on this matter, see pp. 65-67.]

[Footnote 33: It is at least interesting to note that the day before Marlowe's cruel end Richard Baines had included in his report to the Privy Council these words: "I think all men in Cristianity ought to indevor that the mouth of so dangerous a member [as this Marlowe] may be stopped." Was this a mere coincidence? or was it a broad hint to their Lordships of what was about to happen? or was it only an unintended betrayal of a secret of which the writer had cognizance? That it was not the pious indignation of a good Christian which prompted Baines' prophetic utterance is sufficiently evident from what we know of that worthy's career.]