LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Christopher Marlowe: Death
built 628 days ago
The circumstances of Marlowe's death provide much for speculation. On May 30, 1593, Marlowe was feasting with a group of four men when he reportedly quarreled with one Ingram Friser, who killed Marlowe on the spot by stabbing him above the right eye. Friser claimed self-defense and was pardoned shortly thereafter, despite the mysterious circumstances. David Riggs points out that the Queen herself had ordered Marlowe's death four days before (334). Was the Friser incident merely a coincidence? And how had Marlowe earned the anger of the Queen?
Source:
The magnificent architectural antiquities of his native city cannot fail to have made lasting impression upon Marlowe's plastic mind, and to have excited his boyish wonder and admiration. Canterbury could not fail to have ever been a city of marvel for him. Every evening when the sounds of the busy streets began to wane, and the mystical hour of eight rang out from the several steeples, how breathlessly must he have waited for the sound of the curfew from the lofty 'Bell Harry' tower, telling him of bed-time. How solemnly must have sounded to him the knell from that bell as, in 1575, in accordance with custom immemorial, it tolled out to the saddened city the news that an archbishop, a noble benefactor, had passed away. Little Kit could not then have foreboded that that sullen sound betokened the death of Parker the loss of the best friend this world had given him.
Source:
Marlowe's violent death was not something that exceptional among writers. In 1599 the playwright John Day apparently killed the playwright Henry Porter, and the famous dramatist Ben Jonson killed the well-known actor Gabriel Spencer in a duel . As a spy and a writer Marlowe is an early link in a long tradition through Ben Jonson and Daniel Defoe to modern day writers Graham Greene, John Le Carré, John Dickson Carr, Somerset Maugham, Alec Waugh and Ted Allbeury.
Source:
For some, the personality of the man and his death are as fascinating as his plays and poems. On 30 May 1593, after a day of drinking with three friends, Marlowe was stabbed in the eye, with his own dagger. The magistrate accepted his killer's "self-defence" plea; but academics ever since have puzzled over that moment which closed the career of the most promising Elizabethan dramatist.
Source:
A John Marlowe, to whom various church register references are made in connection with the christening and burial of his children, was probably the poet's paternal grandfather. His occupation and the date of his death have not been traced, but it is surmised that the next John Marlowe was his son, and he was, as is known, the poet's father. This last John was married on the 22nd of May 1561, at the parish church of St. George the Martyr, by the Rev. W. Sweetinge, the rector, to Catherine Arthur, the daughter, in all probability, of the Rev. Christopher Arthur, at one time rector of St. Peter's, Canterbury, and, apparently, a scion of an ancient Kentish family entitled to bear arms.
Source:
Marlowe was stabbed to death at the age of 29 under circumstances that remain a mystery to this day. Some believe his death was faked and that he continued to write plays under Shakespeare’s name.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Death