Marlowe Christopher - Christopher Marlowe: poet & spy

Christopher Marlowe

The putative portrait of Christopher Marlowe at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. When it was found in a broken state in 1952, a quest to identify its sitter began. The legend at the upper left reads: ANNO DOMINI AETATIS SUAE 21 | 1585 | QUOD ME NUTRIT | ME DESTRUIT (Aged 21 in the year of our Lord 1585: That which nourishes me, also destroys me)

Poet & Spy

Park Honan

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

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Park Honan 2005

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First published 2005

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Honan, Park.

Christopher Marlowe : poet & spy / Park Honan.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0198186959 (acid-free paper)

1. Marlowe, Christopher, 15641593. 2. Dramatists, EnglishEarly modern,

15001700Biography. 3. Espionage, BritishHistory16th century. 4. SpiesGreat

BritainBiography. I. Title.

PR2673.H57 2005 822.3dc22 2005019761

Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

Printed in Great Britain

on acid-free paper by

Biddles Ltd, Kings Lynn, Norfolk

ISBN 0198186959 9780198186953

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

To my family and Ernst Honigmann

I especially wish to thank staff at the Canterbury Cathedral Archives and at the Canterbury Library, as well as at Cambridge University. At Corpus Christi College, the Master and Fellows let me stay over at Marlowes former college time and again while work on this biography was in progress. I am very grateful to Ms G. C. Cannell, for constant help at the Parker Library.

I gladly thank the Huntington Library in California, as well as the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, for fellowships while I was writing the book. In the Netherlands, I was aided at Naardens museum, and very considerably at the Gemeentearchief Vlissingen, to whose staff, and especially Ad Tramper, I am obliged. In France, I was aided at Rheims and particularly at the Muse Carnavalet in Paris; also, for their interest and encouragement, I thank Pierre-Louis Basse, Franois Mouret, Marianne Sinclair and Sylvette Gleize, in Paris, and, in Brittany, Annick and Per Blomquist.

Closer to home, I am much obliged to the Bodleian Library at Oxford; the British Library in London; the Brotherton Library at Leeds University; the Centre for Kentish Studies at Maidstone; Deptford Public Library; the National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office), and the Yorkshire Archaeological Society. Members of the Marlowe Society, including Peter Farey, Michael Frohnsdorff, Alan Hart, and John Hunt, generously shared with me their research and often their time. At the Royal Armouries, Philip Lankester and Robert Woosnam-Savage tirelessly replied to my queries. For help with Renaissance Latin translations, and often debatable meanings, I warmly thank J. W. Binns of York University. I also turned to Moira and Gerald Habberjam in matters of genealogy and palaeography, and to Paul Turner for enlightenment on Greek, and other unique blessings.

Ian McDiarmid replied wisely to my questions about his acting Barabass role in The Jew of Malta. As often before, Andrew Gurr answered queries on playing companies, and sent notes on sources. On English law and homicide, Nicholas Inge set me straight, or straighter than I was. For medical and physiological details, I thank Dr J. Thompson Rowling and Andrew Lowsosky, and for much pertinent discussion, Dr James Birley and Julia Birley.

Ernst Honigmann, Michael Shaw, and Stanley Wells improved this book by reading some or all of it in draft. I am also grateful to Alistair Stead for his textual comments, and to Andrew McNeillie and Janet Moth for their editorial care.

No one mentioned in these acknowledgements is, in any way, responsible for the books shortcomings. For help with matters bearing on Marlowes life or the theatre, I am grateful to the following persons: Gerard Barker, David Bevington, Michael Brennan, H. Neville Davies, Ian Donaldson, Paul Hammond, Alan Haynes, G. K. Hunter, Arthur Maltby, Tom Matheson, Charles Nicholl, Veronica OMara, Anne Weir, Brian Wilks, and Laetitia Yeandle.

I thank former students and my colleagues at Leeds University, and particularly Raymond Hargreaves, John Scully, and Alistair Stead: all three will recall, as I do, the sensitive criticism of Douglas Jefferson. I benefited, too, from remarks by the late David Hopkinson and Richard Pennington. Also to be thanked are Ernst Honigmann for his intellectual generosity, and my family, though I mention only Roger and Natashas keen interest, my son Matthews aid in Europe, my brother W. H. Honans comments, my elder daughter Corinnas editorial notes, some strange criticism (in odd French) by M. Harvey Slice-up, and my wife Jeannettes great help at all times.

I should like to acknowledge the following sources of facsimile illustrations:

John Bakeless, Christopher Marlowe: The Man in his Time (1937), facing page 196 (Plate 2), facing title page (Plate 4); The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, shelfmark Arch A e. 125 (Plate 21); John Cavell and Brian Kennett, A History of Sir Roger Manwoods School (1963), facing title page (Plate 31); Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone (Plate 11); copyright Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College Cambridge (frontispiece and Plates 7, 12, 13), and by courtesy (Plates 8, 9, and 10); Deptford Public Library (Plate 33); Dulwich Picture Gallery, by permission of the Trustees (Plate 23); Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, x (1924), facing page 24 (Plate 18); Folger Shakespeare Library, by permission (Plates 20, 29); the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, by permission (Plates 1, 6, 27); J. H. Ingram,