INTO THE LION’S MOUTH.
And tell him that I labor all in vain,
To ease his grief and work his liberty;
And bear him this as witness of my love.
—Edward II, v, 2.
O! give thyself the thanks, if aught in me
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;
For who’s so dumb that cannot write to thee.
—Sonnet, xxxviii.
At the close of Anne’s testimony and while the coroner’s jury was in deliberation, Tamworth had had an opportunity to speak to her. He stated that Marlowe was secreted in the heart of London, but where he would not disclose; that an early meeting was devoutly prayed for, and that the main purpose of his presence at the inquest was to arrange for it; that the church of St. Olave in the Old Jewry was deemed the most convenient place; that she was to be at its entrance upon the following Sabbath night at ten o’clock. This was as much as could be communicated in the short space of time allowed. A ready assent was given by her, and with this, Tamworth left the tavern and returned to London. His departure had been too hasty; for with a delay of a few moments he would have discovered the frustration of his plans for the meeting. By the light of such discovery another tryst might have been arranged but it was darkness that ensued. Anne never appeared before the church of St. Olave.
Tamworth had been careful to avoid raising suspicions that he had anything more than a passing interest in the wife of Francis Frazer. It was this that caused him to leave before the hour which he thought would mark her departure. If he had at any moment entertained the idea that the coroner would bind her over to attend before the Grand Jury, or in Court, he had dismissed such idea with the thought that sureties for her attendance would be readily secured. The coroner did bind her over despite Tamworth’s recent exposition of the law concerning the wife’s incompetency to testify against her husband. She was unable to secure bail.
While Anne was testifying before the coroner in such manner as to secure the peace of Marlowe, Bame was as zealously working for an exactly contrary object. If we should here announce that at length the efforts of Anne became perverted and joined those of the man who worked for destruction, it would seem that this narration was descending to a travesty of life; but such a concatenation of events followed, and it arose as a natural sequence. While Tabbard, with only temporary concern and that mainly of pecuniary character, had brought about the meeting of the lovers, and circumvented the police to his own destruction, she, whose heartstrings were interlaced with those of the man whom the rustic Tabbard had aided, had involved him in an affair which was to eclipse his ascending star, and was to place him in the hands of his arch enemy. When, in the Windmill tavern, Bame had recognized Tabbard and imagined evil from the hobnobbing of the latter with the constable, his fear of a miscarriage of his plot of destruction had been increased by seeing the exultant expression on Tabbard’s face as he destroyed the warrant. At that moment the character of the scattered paper was unknown to him. All that had transpired in the Windmill forced him to the conclusion that he had been outwitted. He had only reached this stage of mind when Tabbard’s glass fell from his hand and the stricken man rolled to the floor. Bame was the first one to reach the victim. He heard his words, and then picked up the largest pieces of the warrant. His apprehensions were verified; Marlowe had escaped him.
That night he held a vigil over the dying Tabbard, who had been removed to a bed chamber of the tavern, a cramped room in a corner of the building, with a round window looking down in the Old Jewry. Until the end came, Bame remained beside the dying man, not in the spirit of a ministering angel, but to gain information of the whereabouts of Marlowe. Tabbard’s disconnected utterances about Deptford and some one whose interest he held at heart, conveyed no absolute assurance that Marlowe could be found in the locality mentioned; but it was a straw at which the hearer grasped. The armorial device of the house of Surrey upon the hilt of Tabbard’s short sword proclaimed the wearer’s dependency upon the Duke of that name. Bame knew of Sayes Court, the country place of the Duke at Deptford, and at once in mind he placed the actor there. Had not the theaters closed for the season? Had not the Duke withdrawn to Sayes Court during the prevalence of the plague in London? Was it not more than probable that the company of actors, of which Marlowe was a member, was gathering at Deptford for the entertainment of royalty? These were the mental questions of the Brownist, and carried affirmative answers with them.
After taking the corpse of Tabbard to the death-cart, Bame, first taking care to see that no member of his sect was within sight, had re-entered the tavern, braced himself up with a glass of charnico, and fallen asleep at one of the lap-room tables. It was but a short doze, for the morning stir began early. He partook of breakfast where he sat, then full of his intent to see Gyves punished, and Marlowe apprehended, he passed into the street. Shop blinds were being taken down, and the street criers beginning their day-long noise. The latter shook him uncomfortably, for the night had given him no rest, and there was naught that appealed to his wants in the cries of “rushes green” and “hot sheep’s feet.” He required no rushes for the floors of his dwelling and his hunger had been appeased. The citterns played by some barbers close at the corner, where he paused to consider whether he should go first to his home or to the Justice, was not unpleasant music, but it grated harshly on his Puritanical ears; and reviving his thoughts of playhouses and their orchestras, it started him toward the Justice’s office. Tabbard’s horse, still standing at the corner of St. Olave, attracted his attention as he waited for the Justice to dress himself and come below. It was a strange place for a horse to be tied. The church was closed and there were no open windows near at hand into which the rider could have vanished. Tabbard’s spurs had raised the query as to where the dead man had left his horse, and in this forlorn-looking steed he read the answer. He determined to put him to use as soon as a proper lapse of time gave additional assurance that he was right in attributing ownership to Tabbard.
In the stuffy den of the Justice, he spread the proof of Gyves’ offense upon the table, and swore to a complaint against him for a misdemeanor in allowing an accused person to escape. Then he applied for an alias warrant on the old charge of blasphemy against Marlowe, but as it appeared that the latter had fled the country, the Justice declined to act further until he had assurance that the accused was within reach of his process. Bame insisted, but the Justice shook his whole heavy body with the violence of his negatives.
“What can be done?” demanded Bame.
“See the public prosecutor.”
“Can you not advise for the sake of the church?”
“Lay the charge before the higher authorities.”
“What, before the Queen? That has been done.”
“For what purpose, when your charge was made here?”
“To give it greater publicity.”
“Was it made strong?” questioned the Justice.
“All that was necessary was to quote from his writings, and to pound into the ears of the Queen the quotation from Marlowe’s ‘Jew of Malta’:
‘Many will talk of title to a crown:
What right had Caesar to the empery?
Might first made kings, and laws were then most sure
When like the Draco’s they were writ in blood.’”
“Good,” said the Justice, “you were equal to your task, but you should have made it even more bitter; for if the Queen is not moved by your first accusation, she will not be by anything later.”
“It showed that he reviled religion; that he persuaded one man to become an atheist; that he meant to utter false money of the kingdom.”
“’Tis the same charge you made and swore to here. Is it wholly true?”
“Can any crime be too heinous to attribute to an atheist?” asked Bame with a vicious expression on his face.
“Then such judicial process may issue from the King’s Bench to bring him in from any county in England wherever he may be found. You must await the action of that higher court.”
“’Tis a grave public duty,” said Bame, solemnly, “and I now go to Deptford to locate him in case the Queen should move the King’s Bench to action.”
Bame met with many delays before he rode Tabbard’s horse across London Bridge. The verdict of the coroner’s jury had been returned, and the body of the slain man was being followed to its resting place in the churchyard of St. Nicholas when Bame overtook the small funeral cortege just beyond the Golden Hind. The majority of the train were actors and they bore the rough board coffin on their shoulders. In answer to his query, they had honestly but not correctly stated that the deceased was Marlowe, and Bame, feeling that the object of his wrath had forever escaped him, abruptly reined in his horse.
“Where are you taking the body?” he asked.
“To St. Nicholas,” came the answer.
“’Tis unfit for Christian burial,” he exclaimed.
He was about to say more, but glances from several members of the group froze his utterance. The glances meant violence. They came from the eyes of men who recognized him as a member of the sect which not only cursed their profession but was endeavoring to crush them out of existence. He swung his horse’s head around and dug his heels in the animal’s flanks. For his own good, his flight had been well timed, for all that reached him were their merited execrations.
At the Golden Hind he learned of the events of the past twenty-four hours, and as he talked in the tap-room, through the center came the coroner. Anne was with him. She was to accompany the officer to the house of the sheriff. The meeting between uncle and niece was not without an exhibition on her part of something approaching filial affection. In his own household he had ever presented himself as devoid of all the sterner and harsher traits which made him an object of dislike and hatred in the outer world, and great sympathy and love had existed between them. Her elopement had shaken these sentiments in him, but this meeting had revived them. They conferred apart while the good natured coroner attempted to drown the heat of his late exciting session by many deep bowls with Dodsman and several obsequious and admiring loungers.
Many were the questions with which Bame plied his niece. Whom had she married? How came she here? Where had her husband fled? All were answered except the last, she maintaining even with Bame that Marlowe was the dead man.
At the conference between Bame and Anne, it was decided that he should journey at once to Canterbury and inform her father of her unfortunate situation. There appeared no other plan by which she could be released. Bame and Crossford should stand as sureties for her future appearance. The former agreed to bring about a reconciliation. But then there was a matter which to her seemed of more pressing importance. She required a courier for the opposite direction, that is, toward London. It took some deliberation to formulate her story and as much more to determine whether it were safe to convey even this story to Bame. The question of safety concerned Marlowe only. Her road for the meeting on the following Sunday evening at the church of St. Olave was blocked as effectually as though prison bars held her in. The promise for her appearance there had gone from her freely. Neither she, nor Tamworth, had suggested any means or method for further communication between herself and Marlowe, should their meeting, as proposed, be prevented. The thought of his being a fugitive from justice had appalled her as to its far reaching consequences to herself. It was only in some foreign country, unknown to herself, that she had pictured him. Tamworth’s communication had scattered her fears. The order of the coroner for her detention had again plunged her into a deeper pit of despair. Here was the opportunity to convey the reason of her inability to meet him as promised, and to post him of her future. She realized that it was a dangerous matter to run anyone into contact with Marlowe, but here she apprehended no danger. Up to the time of her departure from Bame’s house, she knew that Bame was a stranger to the man in question. It was not only unlikely but highly improbable that he, a devout Brownist, should know the licensed player, and unlicensed writer. Thus reasoning, she placed the man she loved into the hands of his most implacable enemy.
It was one of her husband’s friends, she said, who would be at the entrance of the parish church of St. Olave at ten o’clock on the evening of June —. The meeting had been arranged before the duel at the tavern. It concerned his departure from England. His flight, she continued, would prevent the meeting. It was a matter of great concern, and at the moment of the separation between herself and husband she had promised to meet the man who would be in waiting for him. Would Bame act in her behalf? The statement was plausible, but Bame saw more in it than her words conveyed. However, whether the meeting was of her own concertion, with a nameless man or with her husband, whom Bame had never seen, did not seem of importance. What message was he to bear?
She wrote, in few words, of her predicament and prospects; she sealed it, and delivered it to Bame. The missive ran thus: “I have word of thy present safety and rejoice; for my situation had made me fearful of thine own. To thy request for me to meet thee, I returned my promise; but now the hope of compliance hath vanished. I am held as a witness. If the termination of my imprisonment is dependent upon thy arrest, I pray that I may never be at liberty. However, I have hope of an early release, and of going to my father’s house in Canterbury. In the meantime be content, I pray thee, with the assurance of my love. The bearer is to be trusted. He is my uncle and will return here with thy answer. Let it be of where I can find thee later. Sealed with my love. Anne.”
It has taken many pages to narrate events covering only a full day in space of time; but in comparison with the vast harvests of literature that have been gleaned from the sowing of the night of June 1, 1593, this sole noting of the steps of the husbandmen who scattered the seed, is but a single sheaf. And now with the coroner’s verdict in, Francis Frazer buried under the name of Christopher Marlowe, the latter darkly brooding in obscure safety, and the world so cony-catched that only after an interval of 300 years doth it see clearly, we will trace the dark events leading up to the darker ending of Bame.
Richard Bame was hung at Tyburn on the 6th of December, 1594. That event is historical, and it is well to fix it in the mind of the reader before drawing his attention to a narration of what may have been the reasons for this tragedy. In this connection it is also well to emphasize a few other historical facts. The accusation against Marlowe for blasphemy was actually placed before the Queen [[note 31]]. If Marlowe’s death followed so closely on the heels of this proposed vigorous prosecution of him for that ecclesiastical crime, it was a remarkable coincidence. Conviction would have been certain. It required no reading between the lines of Faustus and the Jew of Malta. Flight, or concealment, was the only escape for him. What was better calculated to stay a search and avert apprehension, than a report of death? The reports, many and contradictory, appeared [[notes 9-13]].
But why was his accuser hung? Was it due to revengeful influences working for Marlowe, that Bame, wearing the cockade of the condemned, passed through crowds down Tyburn-road on his last earthly ride? Or was this horrible culmination of his days due wholly to his own misapplied zeal and a catastrophe of criminal character?