From Kyd's unnecessarily venomous attack on the character and opinions of "this Marlowe" (as he contemptuously designates him) it seems reasonable to infer that Kyd hated Marlowe and thought that it was he who had betrayed him to the Council. How otherwise, Kyd might have thought, would the authorities have selected his study for such a search, and known what they evidently knew—the very day after the special commission had been appointed. It was impossible for the officers to have pounced on him by chance. Fretting under his supposed betrayal by his quondam room-mate, he wrote to Sir John: "his L[ordshi]p never knewe his [Marlowe's] service, but in writing for his plaiers, ffor never cold my L[ord] endure his name, or sight, when he had heard of his conditions [i.e., of his atheism], nor wold indeed the forme of devyne praiers vsed duelie in his L[ordshi]ps house, haue quadred [—squared] wth such reprobates. That I shold loue or be familer frend, wth one so irreligious, were verie rare, when Tullie saith Digni sunt amicita quibs in ipsis inest causa cur diligantur, w[hi]ch neither was in him, for p[er]son, quallities, or honestie, besides he was intemp[er]ate & of a cruel hart...."
The inference that Kyd suspected Marlowe to be the author of his woes is further supported by the fact that in a document[12] which was almost certainly written during Kyd's incarceration, and therefore before the letter to Puckering, the prisoner declares—in his own handwriting—that it was Marlowe's custom "in table talk or otherwise to iest at the deuine scriptures/gybe at praiers, & stryve in argum[en]t to frustrate & confute what hath byn/spoke or wrytt by prophets & such holie men/He wold report S[ain]t John to be or savior Christes Alexis.[13] J [—I] cover it with reverence/and trembling that is that Christ did loue him wth an extraordinarie [—unnatural] loue."[14]
That Kyd thought he had been betrayed to the Council by an informer is clearly implied in his attributing his troubles to an "outcast Is[h]mael" who "for want [i.e., in hope of reward] or of his own dispose to lewdness [i.e., wickedness] had ... incensed yor L[ordshi]ps [the Council] to suspect me" (quoted from his letter to Puckering).
But that is not all. The words "outcast Ismael" in the above quotation serve, almost without a doubt, to identify Kit Marlowe as the informer who betrayed Kyd to their Lordships of the dreaded Star Chamber. In the epithet "outcast" Kyd probably meant no more than that Marlowe's atheism made him a social outcast, but it is not at all impossible that he had something more specific in mind. In his letter to Puckering he says that the patron whom he and Marlowe served could not endure Kit's name "when he heard of his conditions." In the one-page memorandum or affidavit which Mr. Brown discovered, Kyd calls God to witness that this pious patron had commanded him, "as in hatred of his [Marlowe's] life and thoughts," to break off associations with one who entertained such "monstruous opinions." This considered, it would not be at all surprising if we should some day discover that Lord Strange had ordered the troupe of players bearing his name to sever its relations with the atheist poet. That the designation of the informer as an "Ishmaelite" (a term which the Standard Dictionary defines as "a person whose hand was against every man") refers to Marlowe's rashness in attempting "soden pryvie iniuries to men"[15] (Kyd's words) seems almost a certainty.
On May 18, 1593—six days after Kyd's incarceration—the Privy Council issued an order for Marlowe's arrest. It must always remain a matter for great regret that the minutes of the Council, as well as the warrant for Marlowe's apprehension, are silent about the nature of the charges against the younger poet and the identity of his accuser. But, considering the close similarity between the accusations brought against him in the other documents in the case and the offences enumerated in the Kyd memorandum, there can be but little doubt that Marlowe's arrest was due solely to Kyd's charges against him. So certain was Kyd that it was his erstwhile associate who had betrayed him to the authorities that he retaliated by divulging what he knew about him and even by threatening to involve the advanced spirits who permitted Marlowe to share in their freethinking and philosophical debates.
On the 20th day of May Marlowe was under arrest, but not imprisoned. Though at liberty, he was prohibited from leaving the precincts of the city and was "commanded to give his daily attendance to their Lordships [the Council] until he shall be licensed to the contrary."[16] This, it must be granted, was so extraordinary an act of leniency on the part of the Council that, in connection with its knowledge, as the records show, that Kit was to be found at "the house of Mr. T. Walsingham [one of the chiefs of England's secret service] in Kent," we are surely warranted in inferring that the Council did not take the matter too seriously, very probably because it knew that Marlowe was one of the Queen's secret agents, and perhaps, too, that he had been responsible for the arrest of his vindictive accuser.[17]
Just what happened during the first few days after Kyd's arrest can only be conjectured. From his memorandum to their Lordships of the Council—which, in all probability, only repeats what he had told them orally—we may infer that, under the stress of "paines and vndeserved tortures," he had spoken of "men of quallitie" (members of the nobility) who kept Marlowe "greater company;" but, even though he admits that he can p[ar]ticularize (—name) some of these, he carefully refrains from divulging their identity. He evidently hoped that some of these men of quality would come to his rescue.
After Kyd had been given a preliminary treatment in Bridewells, perhaps with the "crewel garters" spoken of in Shakspere's King Lear, he began to realize that those who were in peril from him were not rushing to his rescue. He there-upon ventured a little further and certified to his torturers that Marlowe "wold p[er]swade wth men of quallitie" [still unnamed] "to goe vnto the K[ing] of Scots whether [—whither] I heare Royden is gon and where if he [Marlowe] had liv[e]d he told me when I saw him last he meant to be." This was clearly intended to inform the Council and the Queen that some of the foremost men in England were in secret communication with King James of Scotland. To understand the significance of this, we must remember that Queen Elizabeth, ever since the execution of Mary, was in constant fear of what James might do to avenge his mother's cruel death, and that he, on his part, was engaging in a succession of intrigues to secure what, by virtue of his hereditary right and his Protestantism, was virtually already his.[18]