That the Commissioners, or torturers, succeeded in breaking down Kyd's resistance, real or pretended, and "drew" from him the names of some at least of Marlowe's associates, is deducible from his letter to Puckering, wherein he says: "ffor more assurance that I was not of that vile opinion [atheism], Lett it but please yor L[ordshi]p to enquire of such as he conversed wthall, that is (as I am geven to vnderstand) wth Harriott,[19] Warner,[20] Royden, and some stationers in Paules churchyard, whom I in no sort can accuse nor will excuse by reason of his companie." Though the men he names are not the "men of quallitie" he hints at in his memorandum, their mention enables us to designate the men he had in mind, ("the men higher up," our journalists would say). These men of quality, who associated with Marlowe and the three distinguished men just named, were none other than Sir Walter Ralegh, Edward Vere[21] (seventeenth Earl of Oxford), Henry Percy[22] (Earl of Northumberland), Sir George Carey (afterwards Lord Hunsdon), and others.[23] These men constituted a not very popular coterie which a Jesuit pamphleteer, Father Robert Parsons, branded as a "school of atheism" in a book entitled Responsio ad Elizabethae Reginae Edictum contra Catholicos (published in London in 1592). It is generally held that the incomparable Ralegh, at one of whose London houses these brilliant and daring spirits—scientists, poets and philosophers—held their weekly discussions, was the leader of the group, and that for a while his powerful influence with the Queen protected them from molestation and perhaps even from prosecution. Kyd, be it borne in mind, was not one of this circle.
The astonishing thing in this whole matter is Kyd's daring to appeal to the testimony of members of Ralegh's unpopular group of freethinkers at a time when Sir Walter himself, never popular either at Court or with the masses, and still in disgrace with the Queen about his liaison and marriage, was by general report condemned for atheism. From certain documents preserved at the British Museum,[24] we know that the Government, alarmed at the spread of atheism, was willing to make a scapegoat of Sir Walter. Not long after the events we have just narrated, Ralegh was, as a matter of fact, under surveillance, and the Court of High Commission ordered him, his brother, and some of their intimate friends, to be examined (at Cerne, in Dorsetshire) on March 1, 1594. "The examinations," says Mr. Boas,[25] "do not seem to have been followed by any proceedings against Ralegh, but the discovery [which he made during the hearings] that even his private table-talk was not safe from espionage may well have helped to hasten him forth on his adventurous quest for an El Dorado across the southern main." It is worth noting that during the examinations Harriott[26] was several times referred to and that once he was spoken of as an "attendant" on Sir Walter Ralegh.
Kyd was by no means the only one to accuse Marlowe. On Whitsun Eve, May 29, 1593, the Privy Council received a "Note"[27] from one Richard Baines[27] (not "Bames"), charging Marlowe, the associate of cutpurses and masterless men, with the foulest blasphemies. In this document, in the informer's own hand, Baines accuses Marlowe of maintaining that Harriott, the brilliant scientist and inventor, whom the fool multitude regarded as a magician, and whom he describes as "Sir W. Raleighs man," could "do more" than Moses who "was but a Jugler." He goes on to aver that "on[e] Ric[hard] Cholmley hath Confessed that he was perswaded by Marloes Reasons to become an Atheist." The seriousness of this charge will be realized when it is noted that this Cholmelie (or Chamley) was known to have organized a company of "atheists" as well as to have entertained revolutionary political designs, and that Baines[28] further charged Marlowe with having claimed "as good a Right to Coine as the Queen of England."
How Marlowe would have met these grave charges, each punishable by death, must remain a matter of conjecture. He was not destined to reply to them, however, for on the very next day, May 30, this "famous gracer of tragedians" was assassinated by Ingram Frizer, "gentleman," a notorious rascal and a proved habitual swindler. The only witnesses to the homicide were one Nicholas Skeres and one Robert Poley, the former a cheat and jailbird who had been associated with Frizer in some of his nefarious schemes, and the latter a spy.[29] Here, it will be acknowledged, was an excellent trio for a contrived murder. I say "contrived murder" because, from Mr. Hotson's account of the matter, it is clearly apparent that the story told at the Coroner's inquest by Skeres and Poley (the only witnesses to the assassination) is incredible.[30] The circumstances considered, it seems to me much more likely that on that fatal Wednesday, Marlowe was lured[31] to Eleanor Bull's inn at Deptford Strand, was wined liberally till he fell into a drunken stupor; the time being ripe and Eleanor Bull safely out of the way in another part of the building, Ingram Frizer deliberately plunged his dagger into Marlowe's brain to a sufficient depth to cause his instant death.
The assumption that Marlowe's death, contrary to the Coroner's report (q.v.), was premeditated assassination, not accidental homicide in self defence, is warranted by the following considerations.
1. The two wounds on Frizer's head were too slight to have been inflicted by a man in a rage wielding a sharp dagger. In this connection we must not overlook the significance of the fact that no physician seems to have been called in to dress Frizer's wounds, which were probably too slight to require medical attention. That each of the two wounds on Frizer's head was two inches long and a quarter of an inch deep is so curious a phenomenon as to warrant the assumption that they were self-inflicted. A dagger thrust from above downward or from below upward is much more likely to make a punctured wound of variable depth than an incised wound two inches long and only a quarter of an inch deep. (Parenthetically it may be noted that the number "two" seems to have been a favorite with the Coroner in this case.)
2. The only witnesses to the fatal fray were two disreputable friends of the man charged with the killing.
3. Frizer and his friends kept Marlowe company in the tavern, or the grounds adjoining it, from about ten o'clock in the forenoon until night. None of these men explained to the Coroner's jury how he happened to be idle that day and disposed to loaf at Eleanor Bull's tavern all those hours. There is nothing in the evidence to show they had ever been there before or even that they knew the place. And it certainly is strange that both Poley and Skeres (who, as far as the Coroner's evidence shows, may not have been acquainted with Marlowe) should have expected Marlowe to pay for their suppers.
4. It is incredible that Marlowe should have been lying on a cot and that Frizer should have had his back toward him while they were engaged in an acrimonious discussion.