FOOTNOTES:
[34] That such dastardly plotting was not beyond an Elizabethan nobleman is clearly shown by the statement in the Dictionary of National Biography that the Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, "was said to have deliberately planned the murder of an antagonist, and he very reluctantly abandoned what he affected to regard as a safe scheme of assassination."
[35] In the spy's affidavit Cholmeley is reported as saying that Marlowe had told him that "he hath read the Atheist lecture to Sr Walter Raleigh & others." For Marlowe's relations with his contemporaries the reader should consult Professor Tucker Brooke's essay, "Marlowe's Reputation," in Trans. of the Conn. Acad. of Arts & Sciences, 1922, vol. 25, pp. 347-408.
[36] J. Buchan, Sir Walter Raleigh, pp. 41, 45.
[37] Cf. A Compleat Journal of the Notes, Speeches and Debates, both of the House of Lords and House of Commons throughout the whole Reign of Queen Elizabeth. Collected by ... Sir Simonds D'Ewes, London, 1693, pp. 504-9.
[38] When the Queen released Ralegh from the Tower to go to Dartmouth to settle the disputes about the distribution of the spoils taken on the "Madre de Dios," Robert Cecil wrote home: "I assure you, Sir, his poor servants to the number of one hundred and forty goodly men, and all the mariners, came to him with such shouts and joy, as I never saw a man more troubled to quell in my life; for he is very extreme pensive longer than he is busied, in which he can toil terribly."
[39] The Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, 1868, vol. 2, pp. 164-9.
[40] Cf. S. Lee, A Life of William Shakespeare, 1916, pp. 129, 254-5.
[41] That he had friends in the Privy Council seems to be indicated by the following interesting circumstance: in the official replica (Harl. MS. 6853, fo. 320), laid before Queen Elizabeth, of Richard Baines' note accusing Marlowe of blasphemy, the designation of Harriott as "Sir W. Raleighs man" was omitted—surely not for the purpose of sparing the Queen's feelings. And nine months later the Commission, which had been appointed to examine him at Cerne, apparently squashed the matter after it had heard all the witnesses and obtained sufficient evidence to convict him, his brother and Harriott, had it wished to do so.
[42] Harriott, and therefore Ralegh, was mentioned not only in every one of the documents we have referred to in connection with the charges of heresy and blasphemy but also in connection with plots against the Government.