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Christopher Marlowe: Deptford Strand
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Christopher Marlowe's death in 1593 was as shrouded in mystery as his life was clouded by controversy. The long-accepted version is that he and a close friend, one Ingram Frizer, dined in a tavern in Deptford. The two men quarreled over paying the bill, and in the fight that followed, Marlowe grabbed Frizer's dagger and attacked him from behind. Frizer managed to wrest the dagger from Marlowe and stabbed the author fatally in the eye.
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In 1593, after pointing out what he considered to be inconsistencies in the Bible, Marlowe fell under suspicion of heresy. His roommate, Thomas Kyd, was tortured into giving evidence against him, but before he could be brought before the Privy Council, the twenty-nine-year-old poet was found dead at Dame Eleanore Bull's tavern in Deptford. On May 30, 1593, he had gone to the tavern to have dinner with some friends. According to witnesses, there was a quarrel over the bill and Marlowe drew his dagger on another man who, defending himself, drove the dagger back into the young poet's eye, mortally wounding him. There is reason to believe... that Marlowe may have been deliberately provoked and murdered in order to prevent his arrest. Had he been brought before the Privy Council, he might have implicated men of importance such as Raleigh.
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The circumstances of Marlowe's death first came to light in the 20th century. On May 30, 1593, Marlowe dined at Deptford with a certain Ingram Frizer and two others. In the course of an argument over the tavern bill, Marlowe wounded Frizer with a dagger, whereupon Frizer seized the same dagger and stabbed Marlowe over the right eye. According to the coroner's inquest, from which this information is drawn, Marlowe died instantly.
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The facts only came to light in 1925 when the scholar Leslie Hotson discovered the coroner's report into Marlowe's death in the Public Records Office [3]. Marlowe had spent all day in a house in Deptford (owned by the widow, Eleanor Bull) along with three men, Ingram Frizer, Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley. (All three had been employed by the Walsinghams; Skeres and Poley had helped snare the conspirators in the Babington plot.) Frizer testified that he and Marlowe had earlier argued over the bill. Later while he was sitting at a table with the other two and Marlowe was lying behind him on a couch, Marlowe snatched Frizer's dagger and began attacking him. In the ensuing struggle, according to Frizer, Marlowe was accidentally stabbed in the eye. He was killed instantly.
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Marlowe was arrested on the same charge as Kyd hut not imprisoned. He was released on bail and ordered to report to The Court once a day. A week later, he kept an assignation at Deptford Strand at the house of Eleanor Bull, a respectable woman, widow of Richard Bull Gent. and cousin to a Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen, Blanch Parry, (not the brothel of urban legend).
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Marlowe was arrested on the same charge as Kyd but not imprisoned. He was released on bail and ordered to report to the Court once a day. A week later, 30 May 1593, he kept an assignation at Deptford Strand at the house of Eleanor Bull, a respectable woman, widow of Richard Bull
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