A Fine Madness by Alan Judd (best classic books TXT) 📕

Christopher appeared before the Council later that day, which on receipt of his indemnity commanded him to appear daily before them until licensed to the contrary.

They were still gathering evidence, I later discovered, part of which was another note by Richard Baines listing Christopher’s alleged blasphemies and heresies. I also later discovered that Baines was put up to it by a pair of rogues, Thomas Drury and Richard Cholmeley, servants to the Earl of Essex. Why Baines was so keen to help them, having already done his worst to damage Christopher in Flushing, I know not. Personal malice, most likely, fuelled by money. Yet I never knew Christopher bear malice towards Baines; he showed only disdain or indifference. Perhaps that was enough. Indifference can be more wounding than darts of dislike or arrows of hate.

Meanwhile our inquiry into the Dutch Church libel had widened into a hunt for any malcontents who tried to raise the mob against foreigners and the government. It was not our business to enquire into individual heresies and so I could show no interest in the case involving Christopher. I had news of it only from him or from Sir Robert, both infrequent. My last communication from Christopher was a note saying that Poley was expected within a day or two, depending on weather, and that he was to meet him with Skeres and Frizer to discuss ‘business matters’.

What happened next is a matter of official record, as you must know, sir. I presume you have access to the record?

Very well. You will have read that on 30 May Christopher Marlowe, Ingram Frizer, Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley met on Deptford Strand, on the Thames in Kent, at the house of Eleanor Bull, a respectable widow who was distant cousin to Lord Burghley. Mrs Bull let rooms to gentlemen requiring rest or sustenance while waiting to embark or recovering from the rigours of a voyage. Poley had taken rooms the day before when he returned from the Low Countries. He intended to stay two or three days, having despatches to deliver to the Court at nearby Greenwich.

The four men met at ten in the morning in one of the upstairs rooms taken by Poley, who must either have already delivered his despatches or was in no hurry to do so. I have among my papers here a copy of the coroner’s account of what happened in that room. If you wish I can read it to you, sir. I shall leave out the names of jurors and other legal details. But you must forgive my slowness. My eyes are going and even with these extra candles produced for your visit it is not easy reading.

The coroner of the Queen’s household was then William Danby and it fell to him to conduct the inquest because Christopher was killed within the verge of the Court, the Queen residing as I have said at nearby Greenwich. Having named the four men present in the upstairs room, Danby records:

…the aforesaid in the said County of Kent within the verge, about the tenth hour before noon of the same day, met together in a room in the house of a certain Eleanor Bull, widow; & there passed the time together & dined & after dinner were in quiet sort together there & walked in the garden belonging to the said house until the sixth hour after noon of the same day & then returned from the said garden to the room aforesaid and there together and in company supped; and after supper the said Ingram & Christopher Morley were in speech & uttered one to the other divers malicious words for the reason that they could not be at one nor agree about the payment of the sum of pence, that is le reckonynge, there;

I’m sure there is no need to remind you, sir, of the history of relations between Christopher and Ingram Frizer. It began in enmity and, though afterwards they affected a cheerful familiarity necessitated by being parties to common endeavours, they were never of like mind. As I said, there were rumours they were rivals over a wench, though I never knew Christopher engaged with a woman. Nor a man, come to that, as some suggested. Though there is, as I have oft told you, much I do not know.

Well, yes, perhaps there was some rivalry for the affections of Sir Thomas Walsingham, but their dislike of each other existed before that. Some dogs fight on meeting, with no cause apparent. It is in their temperaments. But Christopher was not a man to bear grudges. His nature was fundamentally generous, he would ignore rather than pursue. Look how he shrugged off Baines. Granted, he could lash out in temper, as you know, but he could also be fond and sympathetic. He was with Mary and, in a different key, with me. He mocked more than he hated, which a man like Frizer would have found hard to bear.

As you have just heard, William Danby wrote that the cause of their argument that day was the reckoning, Eleanor Bull’s bill. There is no reason to doubt that, it could easily have been sufficient cause. Poley, Frizer and Skeres were all sharp with money, Frizer and Skeres being notable cozeners, as you know. Christopher was what you might call careful with money and, though I never knew him engage in fraud, I came to suspect there might have been more to his interest in coining in Flushing than the casual experiment he claimed. Yet he must have been prosperous when he died, his plays being so popular. You might think he would disdain to fight over the cost of a meal or two, but perhaps that takes too little account of feelings between him and Frizer. The real red meat of an argument is not always the cause given.

William Danby goes on to write:

& the said Christopher Morley then lying upon a bed in the room where they supped, &