The Case for the Christopher Marlowe

8/2/2019 The Case for the Christopher Marlowe

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The Case for the Christopher Marlowe's Authorship

of the Works attributed to William Shakespeare

By John Baker

The Paper Trail

Since the early 1800s Christopher Marlowe (b.1564) has been a strong contender for the authorship of

"Shakespeare's" works. The notion was first suggested by Queen Elizabeth during the wake of the

Essex Rebellion, when she singled him out as the author ofRichard II.

Two centuries later, scholars began to suspect something was peculiar when they noticed thatMarlowe's works supply the "missing" early works of Shakespeare, so it was suggested,

anonymously, that Marlowe might have been William's nom de plume.[1]

Once Marlowe's life proved Marlowe's works his own, the theory was discarded, but once it became

clear Shakespeare's biography offered no proof of his authorship (apart from the title page

advertisements) the theory was revised in the reverse.

This was in 1895 when an American literary sleuth, Wilbur Gleason Zeigler, first suggested that

Marlowe createdthe name William Shakespeare as his own pen name or nom de plume and faked his

death to avoid facing pending capital charges.[2]

The rustic, informally educated actor from Stratford, replete with his illiterate family, no intellectualproperties or friendships, was, according to Zeigler, pressed into service for the role of author, seven

years after his own death. Like the famous lobster, it may have been Shakespeare's finest hour, but it

certainly wasn't of his own choosing. This hiatus of seven years remains a pivotal point in the

Marlowe case.

Marlovians suggest that if the actor had been suspected as Author, he'd have paid for it with his life,

given the horribly suppressive conditions of the time, which arrested, tortured, maimed and murdered

writers, while banning and burning their works.

So it simply isn't likely that William Shakespeare ever, even privately, took credit for these

remarkable works and indeed any Elizabethan who looked into the matter, as the Crown had, was

convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the actor wasn't the author, as proven by the inquiry intothe presentation ofRichard IIfor the purpose of rebellion in 1601.

(It is only in thepostFirst Folio years that readers and audiences have come to believe the actor wrote

these remarkable works. Prior to the First Folio's adds, only the ill-informed believed a connection

between the writer and the player.)

Zeigler suggests Marlowe switched identities with the man scholars believe killed Marlowe, one

Ingram Frizer, a serving man of Marlowe's patron, Sir Thomas Walshingham. Zeigler's theory

eliminates the problem of where they found a body and explains why Frizer, who supposedly killed

the realm's highest mind and lifelong friend of Sir Thomas, remained in Sir Thomas Walsingham's

good graces: Frizer didn't, he died, according to Zeigler's account, at Deptford. It was an age that

lacked forensic, Zeigler's case remains plausible. Particularly so since none of the jurors knew

Marlowe and simply accepted Frizer's identification.
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On a more conspiratorial level, Zeigler's theory might explain why the Queen promptly pardoned

Frizer and protected him with the equivalency of the British Secrets Act. The records prove she

managed this by limiting any inquires into Frizer's involvement to those raised in her own Court. This

lid or requirement has prevented any official inquires for four centuries. (Other murders can be

reopened at any time by local authorities as new evidence surfaces.)

Superficially it implies the Queen was in on the charade. This is not difficult to understand, since

Elizabeth understood there were royal policies that could not be accomplished openly. The rub,

however, is that she seems to have perceived herself as the target of Marlowe's pen, so it is not very

likely that she would have bent the law for Marlowe, even if she had fancied him once upon a time.

On the other hand, she was a captive of her advisors, particularly the Cecils, and she may well have

never seen "Frizer."

In any case, the Marlowe theory lay dormant, after Zeigler's book, for half a century, until another

American literary sleuth, Calvin Hoffman, brought Marlowe's case back to life in his bookThe

Murder of the Man Who was Shakespeare (1955). Hoffman's theory holds that Marlowe, already a

prolific writer, merely went on writing and working under other names, including Shakespeare, afterhe eluded authorities who were seeking him for capital crimes by providing them with a cadaver said

his. Hoffman believes Marlowe lived as an exile and sent his plays home to Sir Thomas Walsingham,

and/or their mutual friend, the publisher Edward Blount.

Patrick Cheney, Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, has documented the rationale

for Marlowe's war with the establishment:

Using an Ovidian cursus...Marlowe enters the generational project of writing

English nationhood. Unlike SpenserMarlowe writes a 'counternationhood'---a nonpatriotic form of nationhood that subverts royal power

with what Ovid calls libertas.[3]

In simpler language, Marlowe had embarked on a lifelong or "multi-generational project" geared at

establishing a new type of English nationalism, namely a republican form, as he (or someone) tells us

inRape of Lucrece. Little wonder Elizabeth and her domestic junta were hot on his trail, they didn't

long for the "stage government [to] change from kings to counsels." However "Shake-Spear"

certainly did.

Importantly "Shakespeare's" works first began to appear just weeks afterMarlowe supposedly died.

This remains a primary point. No work said to have been "Shakespeare's" surfaced

until afterMarlowe was officially buried. Hoffman pledged to withdraw his claim if proof to the

contrary ever surfaced. It hasn't.

Unlike Zeigler, Hoffman had the works of Mendenhall to draw upon. Mendenhall first proved (1912)a stylometric relationship between Shakespeare's works, one that did not extend to Bacon, Oxford or

others. ("Stylometeric" is a modern word for measurable aspects of a writer's style, such as the length

of his words and sentences or the use of prepositions and/or common or uncommon words.)

Only Marlowe and "Shakespeare" used words that average 4.2 letters in length. This "proof" remains

one of the best keys scholars have towards establishing the possibility that both writers were the same

individual. If their average word size were different, it wouldn't be very likely that they were the

same writers. Moreover average word size has proven a steady indicator of authorship. Paradoxically

while "Shakespeare" and Marlowe use large words, "they" use so many short one's his average word

size is smaller than many writers.

Modern canon-wide computer or "stylometric" studies have confirmed these earlier findings in all

stylometric areas. Marlowe and "Shakespeare" are often closer to each other in some works than they
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are to themselves. (See Ule or Baker) Indeed strong evidence suggesting the author alive and well c.

1632 surfaced in the mid-eighteenth century when John Payne Collier discovered a 1632 Second

Folio edited by an Elizabethan handwriting as if it were the author's. This unique volume contains

over 20,000 emendations, several thousand of which were cognitive in nature.

The British Library, or more specifically, Sir Frederic Madden, balking at the possibility that

"Shakespeare" might have survived until 1632, promptly labeled the Folio's corrections forgeries and

pointed the finger at Collier. However, modern forensic examinations have exonerated Collier.[4]

Dewey Ganzel, writing in a modern biography published by Oxford's prestigious press, Fortune &

Men's Eyes: The Career of John Payne Collier, suggested that "the defamation of John Payne Collier

may have been the most successful conspiracy in literary history."[5]

At root stood the Perkins Folio

and a group of broadside ballads. Together they strongly suggest Marlowe survived 1593. Documents

of this nature, including the manuscript ofHenry IV, had to be labeled frauds or the Shakespeare

establishment might crumble. Collier, who had an impeccable reputation but slender academic

credentials, was already in his seventies when he was made the Stratfordians' first stooge.[6]

Another victim along the way was the Cambridge political historian, Lillian Winstanley, who in 1921published a remarkable book entitled:Hamlet and the Scottish Succession. Therein Ms. Winstanley

painstakingly proved "Shakespeare" had been to Scotland, knew James and intimate details

concerning his family, including Arbella Stuart, his cousin, as evidenced throughoutHamlet. (In

theNew Variorum edition ofMacbeth, a much more limited proof documents the author's Scottish

travels.)

Nevertheless, in a full page anonymous review, the Times Literary Supplement, rejected Ms.

Winstanley's thesis solely on the basis of the Stratfordian paradigm attesting to their belief that the

actor had never been to Scotland, let alone known James.[7]

Towering over Hoffman stands the genius Louis Ule, whose phenomenal efforts back the modern

concordances of Marlowe's works and of the so called "Shakespeare apocrypha."[8]

Ule'sbiography, Christopher Marlowe 1564 - 1607, attributes most of these works to Marlowe.

Mortimer J. Adler, who brought out the University of Chicago's Great Books of the Western World,

combined Marlowe's and Shakespeare's plays in a single volume, its cover readingMarlowe-

Shakespeare. A nice touch that has proven non confrontational.

A. D. Wraight, a long time student and scholar of Marlowe's life, has openly joined the ranks of those

who believe Marlowe survived 1593 and became Shakespeare. Her books includeIn Search of

Christopher Marlowe, Christopher Marlowe and Edward Alleyn, The Story That the Sonnets

Tell and Shakespeare: The New Evidence.

Doris Wilbert has also recently published a book on Marlowe's post 1593 production, attributing some250 plays to his invention, entitled: The Silent Shakespeare---Marlowe Revivified. She traces

Marlowe though image clusters, subjects and locales, pointing out that Lope de Vega, bested

Marlowe's output by a factor of nearly four.

Wilbert gives considerable evidence that Marlowe continued to write in the four major veins he'd

written in prior to his "official death," i.e., plays, translations, religious tracks and poems. She also

spots him in various true histories of the period.

De Vega's life is well documented. He traveled extensively nearly reaching England during the

Armada debacle and trekked Europe "countless" times. He participated in every sector of Spanish life

from rich to poor, from honest to dishonest, was married, had children, was frequently in trouble for

being a lover, and, not too surprisingly, spent the last twenty years of his life as a priest. In addition to
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writing nearly a thousand plays, five hundred of which survive, Lope left usfourteen

hundredsonnets, several Byzantine novels and numerous political tracks.

Clearly Marlowe could, easily, have been the hidden poet behind Shakespeare's works and, single-

handedly, responsible for much of what Sir Roy Strong calls England's lost renaissance.

Peter Farey an independent scholar based in England, has collaborated with A.D. Wraight and gone

on to make many interesting discoveries on his own which you can read about at hiswebsite.

Susan Olsen, who earned her Ph.D. from Oxford University in Anthropology, has actively researched

primary records in England and America in search of evidence of the poet's "posthumous" life.

Roberta Valentine and Ann Weir are working independently on the project as are many others,

including David A. More, founder and longtime editor of theMarloviannewsletter.

The Harvard educated Hollywood screen writer, Alex Ayres, a Marlovian, has written a screenplay on

Marlowe's authorship which is in pre-production with Atlantic-Alliance, with Ian Sofley (Wings of

Dove), slated as Director. The movie dramatizes how, in the days prior to intellectual property rights,a man's writings might be taken from him as easily as his own breath, particularly in a time when

there was no bill rights nor writers' guilds. How this repressive environment forced Marlowe to give

up both his name and the literary rights to his works, will, no doubt, make excellent fodder for many

future movies.

A new documentary film in the making by the Emmy award winning Australian filmmaker, Mike

Rubbo, focuses on the colorful band of Marlovians who support Marlowe's claim to works said

Willy's and proves that Marlowe's case is indeed viable.

Since Rubbo includes yours truly in his documentary, it would not be immodest to add my own name

to the list of those who have toiled in the fields of Marlowe-Shakespeare scholarship. With two

university degrees, I have published in several scholarly journals on the case, includingOxford'sLiterary and Linguistic Computing, The Elizabethan Review and Oxford'sNotes and

Queries.

Though I haven't maintained Marlowe's case in these publications, I've established new chapters in

Marlowe's life, chapters that link him to "Shakespeare's" works. I've also unearthed documented

evidence in support of Marlowe's post 1593 survival. This evidence places him in Spain and Virginia.

The Rationale

There are many reasons why the genius, Cambridge educated scholar and covert diplomat,

Christopher Marlowe (b.1564) seems likely the author of the works said William Shakespeare's

(1564-1616).

The first is simple and "organic." Or natural. Indeed most Stratfordians freely concede that had

Marlowe lived beyond 1593 he would have matured "organically" or "naturally" into Shakespeare.

Stanley Wells, a leading authority, noted that "had Marlowe survived and Shakespeare died in 1593

we'd never have known about Shakespeare." Wells is certainly correct, since prior to Marlowe's death

Shakespeare had not been published.

As it now stands most scholars believe Marlowe died on 30 May 1593 and that the literary

Shakespeare simply appeared a few weeks later, in full possession of Marlowe's extraordinarypowers, opinions, and memories, not to mention papers, manuscripts and other intellectual
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properties. One of them, Jonathan Bate, thinks of them as "twins." Biographically it's an odd, even

preposterous claim, but its all the record has allowed. Until now, that is. Because it can now be

proven that Marlowe survived 1593. According to his inquest, Marlowe was allegedly stabbed to

death in Deptford, Kent in a drunken quarrel with a servant of Sir Thomas Walsingham, named

Ingram Frizer, who supposedly acted in self-defense.

The alleged slaying took place in the home of Eleanor Bull, once believed to have been a tavern or a

brothel, but now correctly identified as an upper class home of an ancient armorial family, with

kinship links to the Queen and Lord Burghley. One of Eleanor's sons, Nathaniel Bull, proves to have

been a classmate of young Marlowe's at the King's School. Other authorities are now calling the

home a "safe-house" where Burghley kept agents awaiting orders.

New Inquest Evidence:

Forensic evidence, taken during the inquest, suggests Marlowe could not have died instantaneously

from a wound to the forehead, as stated. A similar forensic reconstruction also suggests that Frizer

would not have been restrained from moving forward, if he had simply overturned the table, and

could have, thus, removed himself from Marlowe's alleged attack.

More conclusively there are only four explanations which might explain why the four men were there:

one: for a social gathering, which seems, under the circumstances, entirely unlikely; two: to plan

Marlowe's escape, equally unlikely since these men were agents, not planners; three: that they were

there to kill Marlowe, also unlikely, since the men were closely associated with Sir Thomas

Walsingham, Marlowe's patron and friend, and have never been suspected of being murderers or

assassins; and four: to help carry off the charade, i.e., to lie for Marlowe and Walsingham and thus to

save Marlowe. This ability to lie well oath, or "foreswear," is in fact, what these three men are now

best known for.

New evidence, uncovered by Richard Wilson, about the home of Eleanor Bull in Deptford, Kent,

where the events allegedly took place, have proven it to have been the house and office of theBurghley's joint venture enterprise, the Muscovy Company, for which Marlowe's cousin, Anthony

Marlowe, proves a principle investor and player. This makes it even less likely that Marlowe was

murdered that night, because he was on his home turf, surrounded by friends and family. (See,

"Visible Bullets," in Christopher Marlowe and English Renaissance Culture). (1999)

Perhaps more importantly new discoveries by Peter Farey and myself have placed Marlowe's

community friend, and fellow agent, Nicholas Faunt, in Dover, Kent, only a few hours of coastal

sailing from Deptford, Kent on the night of Marlowe's alleged death.

These dispatches have certified that Faunt's mission involved sending English[a]

agents outof the

realm to France, on the following day! Moreover Faunt returned to London via his (and Marlowe's)

native Canterbury, the difficult overland route, making it certain that his mission included a personal

dimension. Was part of it to tell Marlowe's family that he'd reached safety?

Given the sensational nature of Marlowe's "death" and their friendship, it remains odd that Faunt's

master, Nicholas Bacon, did not notify him of Marlowe's end, their correspondence being full of

personal, as well as professional, news. All things considered it looks as if Faunt was manning a "back

door operation" and that he smuggled Marlowe out of the realm on 1 June 1593. (The fuller record

having established their lifelong friendship.)

In addition to this my analysis of the inquest has established that Elizabeth invoked the equivalence of

the British Secrecy Act following Marlowe's death: Marlowe's friends and local civil authorities were

forbidden to reopen the case in local courts. This makes it certain a high level cover-up was enforced.
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If Marlowe had actually died under the circumstances alleged by the inquest, no cover up would have

been required.

So the official cover up is actually another good proof that Marlowe didn't die in Deptford, Kent on

30 May 1593 as alleged.

At Valladolid in 1602?

Astonishingly Christopher Marlowe reappears in the diplomatic records in 1599. It's not a very likely

occurrence, since a spy master cannot have two agents with the same name, since in a crisis he might

confuse them.

Nevertheless scholars have simply thought another Christopher Marlowe surfaced. Hotson identified

him as the Trinity Marlowe, our lad having been a Corpus Christie scholar. However the Trinity

Marlowe now proves dead in 1596 or three years before his name shows up in the diplomatic records.

So scholars must now choose between the "dead" poet/spy and the "dead" Trinity scholar, as to which

one was Cecil's projector spotted in 1599 and again 1602.[9]

I'm betting on the poet/spy, who is said tohave been at Rheims, the English Catholic seminary in France, the analog of Spain's Valladolid.

Our Marlowe's OKS classmates were at both institutions, one of them as provost.[10]

The first and

second citing of him were at Valladolid, the third in Gatehouse prison, the bill for his billet sent to

Cecil.[11]

What more proof could one want? DNA?

Importantly this Christopher Marlowe entered Valladolid on 20/30 May 1599, or six years to the day

from Marlowe's last official appearance. Fancy that.

With Cervantes at Valladolid:

An equally astonishing fact has surfaced at Valladolid. It turns out that the English translation ofDon

Quixote, which materialized a few years later, traces to Valladolid, Spain where Cervantes can be

proven to have overlapped as a residentie with Marlowe.

This overlap proves of primary importance when it is noticed that the English translation ofDon

Quixote, long attributed to a "Thomas Shelton," supposedly the brother-in-law of Marlowe's patron,

Sir Thomas Walsingham, turns out to have been written under a nom de plume, "Thomas Shelton,"

having proved a fictitious person. See Francis Carr:http://www.sirbacon.org/links/carrq.html

Furthermore, Carr has ample evidence to suggest that Cervantes and "T.S.", at the very least,collaborated onDon Quixote. Given the time constraints the most likely place, for such a

collaboration, would have been at Valladolid.

The Cecils role

Thanks to the survival of a private letter between Lord Burghley and his son Sir Robert Cecil dated 21

May 1593 and other period records, we've a pretty good idea what the Cecils, father and son, had up

their sleeves in May of 1593.

The letter reinforces their intention to dispatch an agent to Scotland on the issue of the so called

"Spanish Blanks."[12]

The de facto issue is not so important as is the fact that it was through the

Cecil's private net to Scotland that James VI was (eventually) brought bloodlessly to the throne ofEngland as James I. No more important covert diplomatic enterprise can be cited.
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Now it is well known that Marlowe was a diplomatic historian and scholar. It is also well established

that in May of 1593 he was deeply engrossed in a study of the effects of civil war, since he left on his

desk his unfinished translation of Lucan's Pharsalia or The Dramatic Episodes Civil Wars of Rome.

Moreover, scholars have established that Marlowe's historyEdward IIbases on extensive diplomatic

intelligence about James VI, proving Marlowe was inside the loop on Scottish affairs. (See Lawrence

Normand, "'What passions call you these?'Edward IIand James VI," in CMER.)

Ergo Marlowe proves the most qualified proxy for the Cecils Scottish plans. Even Alan Haynes

thinks as much, "just before Marlowe's sudden death in May 1593 [Burghley] may have been

considering using him again."[13]

Add to this the fact that Thomas Kyd testified, under torture, earlier in May that Marlowe had already

confided in him that he was bound to Scotland and Prague, or as he put it to be with the King of Scots

and with Roydon, the expatriate poet who was at that moment in Prague.[14]

So it looks as if Marlowe

had been discussing this assignment with the Cecils with intimate friends.

Moreover we now have new evidence attesting to Marlowe having successfully fulfilled a three year

assignment with James' first cousin, Arbella Stuart, at Burghley's request.[15]

We also know that

"Shakespeare's" canon focuses on the civil wars of England, dramatizing their ill effects.

So we can be very certain Marlowe was bound for Scotland to be with James VI, later James I, in

May 1593 and that the Cecils, and indeed all of England, were dependent upon him.

The Trail in the Plays

At this point the trail peters out in the diplomatic records, but it is easily picked up again in the

plays. With a single important exception. The man said to have been with Marlowe at the time of hisdeath, the agent and messenger, Robert Poley, is found traveling frequently back and forth to

Scotland, during the next several years.[16]

Since he's with Marlowe in Deptford and had been with him before, it may well be that Poley was his

bag man and continued to work with Marlowe under whatever new identity he carried.

We point out that it is not unusual to loose sight of an agent or covert diplomat in the records. Indeed

there is nothing in the records showing us what it was that Marlowe did for the Cecils to earn their

support for his Cambridge M.A., secured for him by the Queen's entail to Cambridge dated 27 July

1587 and signed by Lord Burghley.

It remains the highest public accommodation paid to a spy or proxy from the period and strongly

suggests that Marlowe was being groomed for geopolitical diplomatic posting, very similar to the

tasks carried out by his friend Nicholas Faunt, who attended the same schools, carried the same

scholarship and worked for the same masters, all in the same area of endeavor.

Marlowe and Arbella Stuart

His assignment with Arbella is in accordance with this suspicion for it placed him at the very heart of

European diplomatic intrigues, since they surrounded Arbella for the next twenty years.

Even Nicholl, who failed to understand that Marlowe was Arbella's reader, conceded that if he was, it

would have been, for this reason, the "most fascinating [of the false] trails and the one I lingered overthe longest."

[17]


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Nicholl simply suggests another Morley, without realizing that Bess' identification of Arbella's

reader exclusively identified the Cambridge poet, because it states that he claimed to have been "much

damnified by the leaving of the university."

Only the Kentish poet left a university standing in the late 1580s, or at the time this one went to work

for Arbella. So we know, unlike Nicholl, that Marlowe was Cecil's man assigned to Arbella and we,

like Haynes, strongly suspect he was Cecil's man assigned to King James.

Marlowe and Hamlet

Now we can leap over to the plays. In the introduction we've pointed out the vilification of

Marlovians by the Stratfordian establishment. We return thus to the Times Literary Supplement,

which vilified the research of the Cambridge political historian Lillian Winstanley

(1921).[18]

Winstanley's study of the ascension of James VI appeared under the title:Hamlet and the

Scottish Succession.

In considerable detail Ms. Winstanley proved "Shakespeare" had been to Scotland, knew James and

intimate details concerning his family, including Arbella Stuart, as evidenced

throughoutHamlet. Indeed she demonstrates how the play, at root a diplomatic docudrama, was

written in order to urge James to become a better ruler by prodding him to be more decisive.

This trail is thus all we need to understand that Marlowe not only survived 1593, but continued to

work for the Cecils and did so at the side of King James VI.[19]

Marlowe, not Shakespeare.

Everything else is simply additional nails in the Stratfordian coffin. Here's how the syllogism runs:

The author ofHamletknew King James. Of the candidates, only Marlowe knew James. (at this

time) Thus Marlowe wroteHamlet.

Since several other plays said Shakespeare's also contain Scottish intelligence, the case stands even

more secure.

Registration ofThe Jew of Malta

Marlowe's play The Jew of Malta appeared in 1633 or forty years afterMarlowe's "death." Where

had it been all those years? That's nearly half a century.

The play had originally been registered on 17 May 1594 or one year to the day from the date of

Marlowe's arrest orders, orders which brought him before the Privy Council on capital charges. No

edition appeared until the next registration on 20 November 1632 (humorously Gilbert Talbot's

birthday, reportedly the wealthiest and most notorious tightwad in England and the cousin, by

marriage, of Arbella Stuart).

In that edition Marlowe's play was dedicated to a Thomas Hammon of Grey's Inn, who the dedicator

claims to have known through the "long compass" of his years.

Believe it or not, Thomas Hammon, who was 68 that year, has proven Marlowe's classmate from at

the King's School in 1579.[20]

Wouldn't you know it?
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The dedication's closing reads "Tuissmius," which may (or may not) be said to be a pun on the

rhetorical term tuism or "the use of the second person in avoidance of the first." We think it intended

as a pun.

Thomas Heywood, who supposedly signed the dedication, wasn't in school with Thomas Hammon,

nor was he an older man, as Hammon, Marlowe and the dedicator were.

The dedication is thus suspect and should be regarded as another intentional clue in the survival of

Marlowe, in this case extending his lifeline to 1633 or to age 69.

The Date Trail

Having survived 1593, the loss of his identity and the establishment of a new one(s), it was necessary

to devise a pen name under which he might continue his real work. We all know it by rote, but what

we've failed to notice is that it was also an anagram, invented by Marlowe, similar to many hundreds

of others found in the works, such as Othello, which rearranges to the theme of the play as O to hell.

William Shakespeare proclaims his droll intentions: "Shake: I Will reappear, C.M."[21]

And did he

ever. (C = Se) Marlowe'sEdward IIcontains a role for a luckless scholar named "Balduck," who like

Marlowe was "reader and attendant" for a young princess. "Balduck" is a perfect anagram for "bad

luck," something poor Balduck has in abundance, when he ties his fortune to the King's

niece. Arbella was James' first cousin and equally as unfortunate in her ultimate destiny.

One year to the day from the date of his arrest orders appeared Marlowe's The Jew of Malta (17 May

1594, i.e., both were the third Friday in May). Five years to the day from the Bradley duel, where Dr

Thomas Watson saved Marlowe's life, killing Bradley in the process, cameHero and Leander(18/28

September 1593). A nice touch for his old friend, since the hero Watson had died in 1592.

Four works said by Shakespeare, the Woman Hater, the Sonnets, Anthony andCleopatra and Pericles were all registered in consecutive years on 20 May, marking the day of

Marlowe's final appearance before the Privy Council. Several fell on Southampton's birthday,

including the late appearing Othello (6 October 1621).

Edward II, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VIandEdward IIIwere all registered on covert

ascension days of their respective protagonists, something that could only have been known to their

historically minded author. Pay close attention here, gentle reader, it gets dicey. First remember

thatEdward IIwas Marlowe's,Edward IIIwas anonymous and the rest were said "Shakespeare's."

Marlowe'sEdward IIopens on a real day in history and calls attention to this in the opening scene,

indeed in the opening line. In it Edward II speaks of Edward I's recent death, "My father is deceast,

come Gaveston And share the kingdom with thy dearest friend." Edward I died on 7 July 1307. Ergo

Edward II is speaking to Gaveston on 7 July 1307, or in that distant year, the first Friday in

July. Edward IIwas entered into history at the Stationers' Registeron 6 July 1593, also the first

Friday in July. This cannot be an accident.

Now leap ahead to the registration of the First Folio, it fell on 8 November 1623. The registration

entered 16 plays said "Shakespeare's" including five recorded as histories. First on that list wasHenry

VI. Now as it turns out,Henry VIalso opens on a real day in history, namely the one marking the

funeral procession of Henry V. Imagine that, its exactly the same literary pattern as we discovered in

Edward II, a play registered thirty years earlier by Marlowe. Wonder of wonders.

More than this literary similarity, Henry V's funeral procession occurred on 7 November 1422, aSaturday. In 1623, 7 November fell on a Friday, so as with theEdward II, the play showed up at the
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Stationers' Hall on 8 November 1623, or the same Saturday in November thatHenry VIopens

on. This cannot be accidental.

The same hand can be seem controlling registrations for these plays and doing so over a thirty year

period. The extended canon shows the control lasted over a period of seventy years, well within the

life of a single, though long lived, individual. Richard IIandEdward IIIfollow similar

patterns. Richard III, said pirated, does not follow this pattern. Wouldn't you know it?

This isn't simply a smoking gun, its a flaming can(n)on.

In the case of Edward III, Edward's real reign began following the execution of Mortimer at Tyburn,

or so write the editors ofThe Encyclopedia Britannica, and Marlowe in the closing act ofEdward II.

The execution took place on 29 November 1330. Thus Edward's real reign began on 1 December

1330. Edward IIIstood for registration 1 December 1595. Likely the next working day, since the

counter was not always open.

It is simply not possible for these registration dates to be accidental or mere coincidence.

Edward IIIhas often been claimed by Stratfordians, but it contains a scene taken from an eyewitness

account of the Armada battle in July of 1587, which we now know was witnessed by Marlowe, whilst

he was working as Burghley's proxy.[22]

Richard IIlost his crown to Bolingbroke (Henry IV) at Flint on 19/29 August 1399. Richard

IIentered 29 August 1597. No accident. Henry IV's opening is "confused" temporally, likely due to

the haste created by the expansion of the play into two parts, or so scholars have

maintained.[23]

HoweverHenry IV, Part Two appeared on 23 August 1600 or the same day Henry IV

had been proclaimed King on in 1399. Someone was keeping track.

Much Ado About Nothing andHenry Vwere registered together on 4 August. That is the date ofCanterbury's carnival begun by Henry VI, to commemorate the birth of his father Henry V, which fell

on that day in 1387.[24]

A good joke, that one, one Marlowe knew by rote. Henry VandAs You Like

Itwere "staied" or prevented from publication, something Stratfordians can't explain. Wouldn't you

know it?

Stylometric Evidence

The literary case for Marlowe's authorship is strengthened in light of overwhelming 'stylometric" or

computer studies linking the works of Marlowe and Shakespeare to a common author and

vocabulary. The first study was undertaken by Mendenhall[25]

and afterwards, more exhaustively, by

Ule and myself.[26]

These canon wide empirical studies take no samples and depend on no inventive paradigms. They

prove overwhelmingly how "both" authors used the same vocabulary, reached for it at the same "rate"

or "pace," and selected words that averaged 4.2 letters each.

Studies which attempt to prove authorship based on rare words only demonstrate how a writer may or

may not use a given word. Such studies pale when compared to the fact that "both" Marlowe and

Shakespeare employed new words at exactly the same rate or "pace" and did so in works of

substantially various lengths.[27]

They also pale when considered against cannon sized studies, such

as Ule's, which consider all the words employed by an author, rather than just a selection, or in the

case of "rare" word studies, one or two words.
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As a matter of fact if Marlowe and Shakespeare are the same writer they would be expected to have

very little overlap in rare words, because both use the same rare words infrequently. Whereas if they

were two, they might well share the same rare words. Certainly Shakespeare's works are "better" than

Marlowe's, but this is what happens as a great writer matures.

The Organic Canon

Organically speaking, writers evidence immature, mature and, lastly, declining

works. "Shakespeare's" organic canon has long been known to exist, but has been squashed by

Stratfordians because it begins as anonymous Kentish plays ca. 1577, moves on to Marlowe's

acknowledged canon, then to "Shakespeare's" 36 Folio plays, and ends up with what are called

"supernumerary works," efforts attributed to Marlowe, Shakespeare or to other Jacobean writers.

These works that finally cease to appear in 1654 when Marlowe's last play, The Maiden's

Holiday materialized out of the ether. Not accidentally that was on the same day "Shakespeare's" first

and last works appeared on, i.e. 8/18 of April. Or as some scholars have noted, "within the span of a

single life."

Indeed this generalized literary evidence is so obvious that since the early 1800s, its been suggested

Marlowe was Shakespeare's first pseudonym.[28]

This theory was rejected when Marlowe's biography

proved his title. It was resurrected in the reverse (in the late 1800s) after Shakespeare's biography

failed to prove the title page evidence advanced for him in the First Folio.[29]

Indeed Shakespeare's title has been deduced purely or exclusively from "title page evidence,"

evidence which in modern copyright disputes is held the least reliable of all. Moreover since many

works said Shakespeare's, weren't included in the First Folio, including his poems, Stratfordians are

involved in a circular argument regarding their claims.

Let it be noted that had Marlowe's name appeared on the First Folio, with a note that he'd survived1593 and written in exile, few would have doubted the claim.

On a grander level, Marlowe is known to have written his own works, works in which

he'd invented the Shakespearean language and form, i.e., iambic pentameter, true tragedy and

diplomatic docudrama. This means that Marlowe is most likely the author of "Shakespeare's" plays,

since "organically" they are so similar to his.

To this we must add the fact that Marlowe has been recently proven the author so called "missing" or

early works of "Shakespeare's" canon. These marvelous Kentish plays are often falsely attributed to

the Warwickshire actor. Yet when taken as a group they teem with Marlovian domesticity lifted

straight out of his father's cobbler shop and from his home of many sisters. They include Famous

Victories, Locrine, The Murder of Master Arden, Timon and Woodstock(Part One ofRichard II).[30]

The Timon manuscript, proven long ago relied upon by "Shakespeare" for his play of similar title, has

been determined Marlowe's and dated to 1580, several years later than Famous Victories, the source

play of the Henriad, which dates to ca. 1577.[31]

These plays are interrelated and several share

characters.[32]

Moreover several of Marlowe's plays appeared long after Shakespeare's Folio and thus

shoulder in "Shakespeare's" canon.[33]

Thus Marlowe owns the organic canon, root and trunk and leaves, with only 36 branches or plays

officially ascribed to Shakespeare in contention.[34]

Take a look atThe Marlowe-Shakespeare Treeto

see how these works are related.
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Why the Plays Weren't Claimed

Now it may be asked that since Marlowe survived, why not just let it be known he'd written

works? Why the hoax? This same question may be asked of all those seriously suggested, including

Shakespeare, Oxford, and Bacon. Why didn't they acknowledge authorship?

Importantly, Oxford (or his heirs) and Bacon could have taken credit for the works.

The fact is only Marlowe had an ironclad reason for not doing so: only Marlowe was a fugitive from

justice during the period in question.

Whilst the others would have basked in fame and fortune, Marlowe would have found himself the

object of a full scale capital manhunt. This is why the plays couldn't be claimed. Marlowe's own

works did continue to appear, but were ascribed to the deadpoet. They were enough to tickle our

imaginations, enough to remind us Marlowe had lived and to suggest he might still be alive, but not

enough to alert the domestic authorities to his survival and thus warrant the resumption of his

manhunt.

Indeed Marlowe's stabbing smacks of theatrics and is closely paralleled by the substitution of a handy

cadaver for Angelo inMeasure for Measure, the author chortling, "death's a great disguiser."

That play, by the way, contains a great part for a "fantastic," the Elizabethan name for a man gifted as

Marlowe was, with the gift of tongues and the nearly total recall of spoken conversations. A talent we

call aural eideticism.

The author attributes it to Prince Hal inHenry IV, causing him to boast, "I'm so good a proficient in

one quarter of an hour, that I can drink with any tinker in his own language during my life." No boast

for Marlowe, on whose birthday the play appeared. By the way, Marlowe's genius wasn't limited to

simply repeating conversations. Those that knew of what they spoke called Marlowe the "highest

mind" in the realm.[35] Period records regarding Marlowe prove this over and over. Marlowe was apolyglot or a "gargantuan mind."

This was not a man to be stabbed in the face by fools whilst ten days overdue on a personal

appearance bond for capital crimes. This was a national treasure, someone to be guarded, protected

and preserved.

The Kentish Connection

The suspicion is strengthened considerably when its noticed "Shakespeare's" English works were

Kentish rather than Warwickshire in perspective and locale.

[36]

As a point of fact, Venus and Adonis,said the first work of "Shakespeare," sets exclusively amongst the "downs" and "brakes" of Kent in

1580, at least ten years before the actor left Stratford.

This fact alone proves Venus and Adonis Marlowe's, not the actor's. Indeed the actor's

community never appears within these works, even when the action passed nearby. On the other

hand, Marlowe's native Canterbury and/or its environs of Dover, Faversham and Kent appear nearly

one hundred times by name or allusion.

No scholar, indeed no Stratfordian, will dispute that the final Folio plays have as their theme the

repatriation of the returning exile. So it seems the author suffered a catastrophic reversal of fortune

and was exiled. It also seems he frequently dreamt of a triumphant return to Kent, "know the

Kent? Every footpath and post, sir." Such is the stuff dreams are made on.
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A Message to Future Readers

Marlowe's brilliant heroic poemHero and Leander, also Kentish in its underlying locale, stands as a

self-professed sequel to Venus and Adonis.[37]

Yet this is impossible since Marlowe is said

dead before the publication ofVenus and Adonis. This biographical nightmare is the bedrock of

Stratfordian scholarship.

[38]

The uniformity in direction of these allusions, all of which are foundinHero and Leanderand refer back to Venus and Adonis, assures us the author ofHero and

Leanderknew his readers had read Venus and Adonis and was reminding them he was

settingHero's scene in the same locale:

[There] Where Venus in her naked glory strove,

To please the careless and disdainful eyes,

Of proud Adonis that before her lies...

12-14

These lines are not found in Musaeus's or Ovid's versions of this story, and are unique to Marlowe's

poem. The allusions prove Marlowe knew of something he could not have known of before the date

of his official death on 30 May 1593. They are also evidence the author of both poems was the sameperson, since he recalls the mutual enjoyment shared by writer and reader.

Another proof of this is the simple fact only the author would have suppressedHero and Leanderfor

half a decade, until the sales ofVenus and Adonis diminished: why compete against one's self?

Marlowe and the Countess

Marlowe's connection with Mary Sidney Herbert is well documented, as is the fact that Mary and her

(wild) sexual habits were the role model for Venus and Adonis.

Indeed the often autobiographic poems were so at odds with the actor's pallid, rustic and slenderly

educated life they were not included within the First Folio (1623) or even mentioned there. Orphaned

for over a century, readers forgot them. Their Kentish subjects and locales have only recently been

documented.[39]

Marlowe's Illicit Son?

As it devolves Mary's first born son was William Herbert, who became the Third Earl of

Pembroke. Herbert was the man to whom the First Folio of Shakespeare is dedicated and who

backed its publication. William Herbert's initials also grace the dedication page of the Sonnets as the

mysterious "Mr. W. H. [b]

It has long been suspected that William Herbert was the "pretty boy" ofthose poems, by experts as well known as Sir Edmund Chambers and Professor Frederick Boas and,

as such, was their "only begetter."[40]

What has not been understood, and cannot be until Marlowe's authorship ofVenus and Adonis and

the Sonnets is acknowledged, is that William Herbert was (very likely) the author's illegitimate and

thus long estranged son.

The "sun" the poet urges to marry in the Sonnets and to whom he was bound by a "hidden shame,"

Let me confess that we two must be twain...I may not evermore acknowledge thee,

Least my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,Nor thou with public kindness honor me,
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Unless thou take that honor from thy name,Sonnet 36

The most reasonable solution to this sentiment is that it is the heartache of an estranged father for a

child he cannot acknowledge, a child who in honoring his real father would take "honor from [his]

name." The child whose features recall the "lovely April of [thy mother's] prime" and the pretty boy

about whom the poet cried, "you had father. Let your son say so." This is hardly the lament of a

homosexual pedophile, but it is the predicament of all estranged fathers.

The record evidences Mary and Marlowe were in Kent in 1579, at the time of William's

conception. That same record assures us Mary's much older husband, the First Earl of Pembroke, had

been childless in his other marriages and many earlier affairs.

It also shows us Mary established a long term affair with the poet Samuel Daniel, soon after

Marlowe's 1593 debacle.[41]

Daniel is the man most often reported to have been "Shakespeare's" rival

poet.[42]

The proposition is enhanced when its realized that Marlowe was (very likely) Sir Philip Sidney's pagebetween 1572 and 1579, when Sidney returned him to the King's School.[43]

Nashe says as much calling Marlowe "Jack Wilton" and dubbing him "King of Pygmies," meaning he

was king of pages at Wilton House, Mary's residence. Aubrey, proclaimed Mary's brother Philip

Sidney the father of her sons, based on Wilton House gossip. Not Sidney, but his ever present page,

Speed.

This interlude is paralleled in Two Gentlemen of Verona where two English linguists, Valentine and

Proteus, both have madcap pages who are also linguists.[44]

These linguists recall their "youthful

travels" and travails; one of them, Valentine, was master to a page named Speed.

Sidney, it should be remembered was often called "Valentine," because of his romantic nature.

Importantly while Oxford and Bacon may have had illicit sons amongst the peerage, none of their

prodigy would have outranked them, as this "sun" did the poet. The poet was thus not of the peerage.

He was a Kentish lad in 1579, young enough to caution Venus to set aside her romantic advances until

he was "old enough to know myself."

She didn't, but she did promise the poet the boy born or their fling in the year of the quakes and the

comet (1580) would furnish him with "light as thou hast given to others."

That boy proves William Herbert born 8/18 April 1580, on whose thirteenth birthday the poem was

registered. The same man who published the First Folio and excluded from it the autobiographicpoems suggesting him the poet's estranged father.

The Profile and the Canon

This "extended canon" or "organic canon," most certainly the author's, wasn't known to the math

teacher and Oxfordian, Thomas Looney, who drew a profile of Oxford mainly on the basis of a single

play, The Merchant of Venice. Looney's profile also ignores the chronology which reaches from ca.

1577, when the author had not yet reached puberty, as evidenced by Famous Victories, to 1654 when

his last work,Maiden's Holiday, stood for registration.
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That's a seventy year span. The profile, thus, suggests the author a Kentish born nonagenarian and

polyglot, a linguist and world traveler, who worked in geopolitical thought.

Based on the works, he began as a child prodigy, reared in a cobbler's family surrounded by sisters

and dominated by a father who was "always in extremes." What we would call, today, a

dysfunctional family.

He traveled widely, likely early on, likely as a page. He became a linguist, later a geopolitical thinker

and Platonist. Though exiled, he retrained high level access to then secret diplomatic materials and,

as an adult, likely commanded positions similar to Sir Lewis Lewknor, who was ostensibly James'

Master of Ceremonies, but unofficially, his "chief spook." His private "intelligence" underlies nearly

all the plays, including The Tempest.

Marlowe as Translator

Marlowe's translations are well known. What may not be so well know is how good they really were.

More than a few scholars credit Marlowe with inventing the forms by which both Latin and Greek are

still translated into English.[45]

Recent work shows he also translated Spanish and Portuguese.[46]

"Lewknor" supposedly translated The Constitution of Venice, which "Shakespeare" relies heavily on

in at least three plays,Merchant of Venice, Othello andMeasure for Measure. Rather odd reading for

a rustic.[47]

Equally exciting, Marlowe's publisher can be proven to have dedicated numerous anonymous

translations to both Southampton and William Herbert, openly suggesting that the translator desired to

do them "good service." This is tangible evidence that the three men deeply involved in the

"Shakespeare" fraud, Southampton, Pembroke and Blount all knew a man they could not

acknowledge, a man who worked as a high level translator of diplomatic tracts, works known to be

used by William Shakespeare.

Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum

All must remember that Marlowe was arrested in 1593, in part, for harboring radical theological

views, views which in Elizabethan times would have labeled him an "atheist." This was a capital

charge leveled at anyone who didn't ascribe to the Church of England's party line, including, now and

then, Catholics.

In the charges, hatched by Cecil's enemies, Marlowe was alleged to have written a theological tract

proving Christ more likely a magician than God and he was known to have a copy of a heretical

discourse on Arrianism, a theological view that rejects the trinity, to which Newton would soonascribe on the grounds that he was too good a mathematician to believe that three was one.

So it should not be too surprising to find radical theological works in the record that only Marlowe

could have written, if he survived 1593. This seems most certainly the case with the

inflammatory Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, which was so radical only a single copy has survived,

pieced together from torn fragments.[48]

It was registered in 1611, the year the King James

Bible appeared and is actually an iambic pentameter and verse transliteration of the New Testament,

based on the Greek texts.

Salve Deus focuses, wouldn't you know it, on the betrayal of Christ. It also advances a most radical

argument, namely that since Christ was born without sin, that sin must enter mankind through

males! A great joke, this one was and one that smacks of biological or medical training. It was
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published by Shakespeare's printers, Valentine Simmes and Richard Bonian, one of whom promptly

disappeared forever, according to Greg and Rowse.

Little wonder, since it was attributed to Emilia Lanier, then a well known courtesan, who Rowse

makes out as the "Dark Lady" of the Sonnets. Lanier, of course, didn't read Greek and couldn't have

been the author, but Marlowe could and most surely was.

Indeed in the introduction the writer remembers his service with the lovely Arbella Stuart, writing,

"whom I long have knowne, And yet not knowne so much as I desired..." He even insinuates a sexual

relationship between himself and Queen Anne, James' wife. Nor does he forget Mary Sidney, who he

credits with teaching him the facts of life, "till I the summe of all did understand."

He also gives us a tantalizing autobiographic tidbit, when he writes, "So that I lived clos'd up in

Sorrowes Cell, Since Elizaesfavour blest my youth." This sentiment does not apply to Ms. Lanier,

but does, of course, apply to a long exiled Marlowe.

De Descensu

That same year (1611) appeared another remarkable theological tract that can only be attributed to

Marlowe's invention and scholarship. It was entitledDe Descensu or The Descent of Christ into

Hell. Not surprisingly it was attributed to Hugh Sanford, William Herbert's old tutor, who had,

luckily, died and thus could not be charged with heresy. Like Marlowe's banned translation of

Ovid'sElegies, this book claims to have been published in the Low Countries. Among other things it

attacked the Bishops, particularly of Winchester, who Marlowe may be seen to have had a forty year

feud with, his last known court appearance on this front dating to 5 July 1632.[49]

De Descensu was supposedly shepherded into print by one "Robert Parker," not too surprisingly once

a classmate of Marlowe's, or his brother, and a grandson of Archbishop Parker, whose estate provided

Marlowe with his Cambridge scholarship.[50]

Revenge, they say, is sometimes sweet. Sanford

allegedly died on the 20/30 May 1607 or on the anniversary of the day Marlowe vanished on.[51] Thebook calls Sanford a polyglot "known in all languages" and proves this factual, since its a Latin

exegesis of the linguistic roots of theological terms. Parker claims Sanford was "so well versed in

every kind of tongue and in the whole encyclopedia of the sciences, that what skill other individuals

barely attain in one of them, he easily attained in all."[52]

This was surely Marlowe talking about

himself.

The Cipher In the King James

Another clue also dating to 1611, apparently a period of frantic theological thought on the author's

part, relates to the cipher in the 46th Psalm, which has been pointed out elsewhere. If the reader willconsult the King James Bible, which appeared in 1611, and will count in 46 words from the beginning

of the 46th Psalm, he will find the Word to be "shake." If the reader next counts in from the end, she

will discover the 46th Word to be, you guessed it, "spear." The words are not in the Hebrew and this

strongly suggests that "Shakespeare" was involved in translating the King James Bible. Wouldn't you

know it? Guess what? Both he and Marlowe turned 46 in 1610, or at the time the Psalms were being

readied for press. Let's see that four 46s. What are the odds?

On "Shakespeare's" Conversion

It is well known that "Shakespeare's" final plays, often called "the period of the romances 1609-

1616," was brought about by some sort of significant personal change.[53] Many writers have likenedit to a "religious conversion." Edward Dowden writing in his, Shakspere, His Mind and Art, notes,


17/27

"the sympathetic reader may discern...a certain abandonment of the common joy of the world...a

remotenessat the same time...[a] tender bending over [of] those who are, like children...[to the

author]."

Given that the period of these plays follow and/or parallel the aforementioned religious works, one

can trace from whence this conversion came. Marlowe as a young lad was being groomed for the role

of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which is why he was sent off to Cambridge on the Archbishop's

scholarship. So this "conversion" is actually a return to his roots. Roots he was never far from, since

the purpose of the plays has always been a moral one: to improve the souls of his audience.

The Actor's Final Years

Shakespeare was supposedly already ill and in retirement in 1611, as we can gather from the

Mountjoy deposition. This deposition proves the actor to speak like a rustic and to be of poor

memory. Indeed it is so damaging a document that modern authorities will not print it in plain

English.[54]

Chambers, who did transliterate it, was so shocked he concluded Shakespeare was well on

his way to dying in 1611.[55]

As a matter of fact, Shakespeare should have answered these questions in writing, the form being

called an "interrogatory." But he didn't. Generally speaking witnesses were deposed only when they

couldn't write. Indeed in this case a written interrogatory would have prevented a costly trip to

Stratford for the London based attorneys. No marvel then that his will evidences him a

simpleton. Like the Mountjoy deposition, modern authorities will not transliterate the will verbatim,

but for those who can read the hand it is proves beyond a doubt that the actor wasn't the author. To

cite just one atrocity, the writer employs the phrase "aftr my deseas" nearly two dozen times in the

short text, but only once in the Folio canon.

Diplomatic Docudramas

The Anglo/French themes of Shakespeare'sHenriad, themes which dig deep into the scholarly history

of ecclesiastic, military and diplomatic relationships between these two countries, is quite certain and

it is equally certain these were Marlowe's areas of church, university and diplomatic training rather

than Shakespeare's. Indeed Henry IV lies buried within Canterbury Cathedral, just blocks from

Marlowe's childhood home.

TheMagna Carta was long housed at Dover Castle, a document signed by King John, the subject of

both the anonymous Kentish play and "Shakespeare's" revision. In fact it was Marlowe who first

focused public attention on these kinds of subjects and it remains true that only his and Shakespeare's

plays deal with topics which were so far from the mainstream. Marlowe'sMassacre at Paris may beconsidered a twenty year dramatic review of Anglo/French affairs, a docudrama, just as

"Shakespeare's" King John was. Indeed the plays are actually Platonic in nature and, in many cases,

diplomatic docudramas, as proven by Sir Fulke Greville's discussion and now more thoroughly by

Howard White's bookShakespeare and the Classical Polity.[56]

It's no accidentHenry VI,Richard II, Richard III, Edward IIand King John were all sacked. Henry

VI, Richard and Edward abdicated, whilst poor John was forced to sign theMagna Carta. No wonder

Elizabeth didn't like "Shakespeare's" view of English history. What do you suppose the Scottish King

James thought aboutMacbeth?

Authorship ofRichard II
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That the actor wasn't the author can be succulently demonstrated from the fates of Essex and Sir John

Hayward as evidenced during the aftermath of the Essex rebellion.[c]

The Cambridge scholar Sir John Hayward, had written a history touching on this period,

entitledJames IV, which he "foolishly" dedicated to Essex. With this in mind, it was rumored

Hayward was responsible for the deposition scene found inRichard II, which Essex presented on the

13th anniversary of Mary Queen of Scots' death, ostensibly to inflame the Globe's audience to

sedition.

Though Hayward proved not involved, indeed he was in jail at the time, on the basis of this purely

literary suspicion, Elizabeth demanded the historian's life.[57]

Bacon, backed by Coke an court

reluctant to execute a scholar on such slender evidence, sentenced Hayward to life in prison

instead.[58]

A petulant Elizabeth's quickly commanded the sentence carried out in the acrimonious

Gatehouse Prison from which few returned, even from short incarcerations.

Had the actor been the author ofRichard II, he would have died along side Essex early in 1601, when

Essex was executed for presentingRichard IIin order to foment his coup d'tat. Or, at the very least,

shared Hayward's fate in Gatehouse Prison.

Indeed Court testimony taken from Elizabeth shortly after the Essex coup, recorded verbatim by her

jurist, Sir William Lambarde (1536-1601), proves she believed Marlowe to have been the author

ofRichard II. Lambarde's notes read:

so her Majestie fell upon the reign of King Richard II. saying, 'I am Richard

II. know ye not that?'

Lambarde, who apparently knew the author to be his Kentish 'cousin' Christopher Marlowe replied,

such a wicked imagination...a most unkind Gent. the most

adorned creature that ever your Majestie made.

to which Elizabeth answered,

He that will forget God, will also forget his benefactors; this tragedy was

played 40tie

The Case for the Christopher Marlowe

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Transcript of The Case for the Christopher Marlowe