Yes, hello friends and welcome back to the men that die in the prime of their lives in excessively violent or weird ways. Seriously, that is what I need to re-title this whole project of mine...it is starting to get depressing! And the trend continues, as we shall soon see with our next piece of historical man cheese, Christopher Marlowe.
Christopher Marlowe, who shall be referred to as Kit, as was his nickname, was born in 1564, the same year as Shakespeare, which must have been a real bee in the bonnet for old Kit, as Willie was his biggest competition. I think their rivalry really stemmed from the fact that Marlowe was way hotter, as I shall soon prove in my upcoming book, Men Who Died Hot and Young. Watch for it...it will be revolutionary.
Anyhow, back to actual information, because after all, this site is for educational purposes. So yeah, he was born in Canterbury, and probably heard a lot of tales. There isn't much information about his early life other than his dad was a shoemaker. Which can't really be used to make a psychoanalytic assessment of Kit, unless he had a phobia of shoes.
Really, I'll get to the info now. Later on down the road, after the incredibly exciting events of his childhood (so exciting that no one writes about them), Kit was given a scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, and then a second scholarship to Corpus Christi College, also at Cambridge. Quadruple C's for our boy, and he took advantage of the prestigious school, gaining is MA in 1584.
During his rather dull six years at college, Kit wrote a play called, The True History of George Scanderbeg, which has now been lost...which makes you wonder how they even know that he wrote it...or what it is about. It is also thought that while at Cambridge, he wrote two of his great plays Dido, Queen of Carthage and Tamburlaine the Great. Again, though I know that history is often lost, how is it that they get the information to guess these things, if there is no information to go off of in the first place? That picture at the top of the page is actually only believed to be Marlowe. For all we know, that is actually his second cousin twice removed Irving, who was famous for rasing genetically altered lima beans.
So basically the point of his school years was that he began to write plays and poetry, what he would become famous for. When he left Cambridge, he was planning on entering the Anglican church to take the holy orders. But he scrapped that and entered the Queen's service as a "trusted government agent." Sounds a bit dodgy if you ask me. He was a member of the Medieval FBI! J. Edgar would be proud. :D
If you know anything about the Elizabethan era, than you know that there were endless plots against the poor Queen, because she was Protestant, and the Catholics were not too happy about it. And of course, that means that everyone wanted to kill everyone else, instead of all getting along and being friendly and fuzzy. Not that the Protestants were any better, but anyway. This is where Kit sort of fit into the picture of being in the Queen's service. He was recruited by Sir Francis Walsingham to uncover plots, and to make a loooonngg story short, Marlowe (supposedly again...there is evidence...) helps uncover the Babington plot, lead by a guy named, you guessed it, Babginton! And in Elizabeth R he was played by a guy who looked liked he smelled something really bad. And that has so much to do with Kit. Forging on....
After all the Babington nonsense, in which people thought that he had been plotting against the Queen, even though he had been trying to uncover the plot, Kit continued to be in the service of the Queen. Obviously Liz had good taste, and saw something in our young playwright stud muffin. Lucky for him, this arrangement brought him into close contact with the court. Also, he was able to glen information about various political activities that got the creative juices a' flowin', as is seen in Kit's political play, The Massacre at Paris. Sounds pleasent, eh?
And here is where everything falls apart...as per usual with these men. It is rather depressing isn't it? Kit was a member of group called The School of the Night, which had been started by Sir Walter Raleigh ("Oh, Sir Walter, really...hah! Sir Walter Really!"). It was a group of intellectuals who got together and discussed interesting scientifical stuff. Now remember that at this point, believing in that sort of thing was a big no no, so the group would meet in secret, lurking in the shadows, sneaking...er...sneakily about. I think we can all guess the direction in which this is going...
The badness started with riots by apprentices in London who didn't like the Huguenots because they thought they would take away all of the business. The stopping of this sort of uprising was the responsibility of the Court of the Star Chamber, which unfortunately also dealt with heresy, and could have trials without a jury. Ouch.
And so, for some reason, some dudes from the CSC (Court of the Star Chamber...I didn't feel like typing it all out, but then I guess I just did...and the rest of this...oy) searched Thomas Kyd's rooms. Kyd was another playwright, and in his rooms they found a discussion of the Holy Trinity that was, wow what a bad thing for them to find at this convenient point in time, labeled "Atheism". Needless to say, they were slightly peeved at this find, and decided to nicely talk to Kyd, by putting him in the rack and torturing him. Guess who he ratted out as the author of the incriminating paper? Well, it certainly wasn't ole Bill Shakespeare...
And so, in 1593, Kit was arrested on charges of heresy. Well, apparently Kit did write that paper, so Kyd was tortured needlessly, and it was really bad news all around. But Kyd's accusations coincided with Kit's death, which he knew about, and used to his advantage, saying things along the lines of "he was one crazy and depraved bugger, and so I can see why he was bumped off." I like to use the historical lingo as best I can. :P
As far as Kit's actual death, cause I kind of had to give that fact away early, though on this web site that would be like going, "and at the end of Titanic, the ship sinks!", and then everyone getting all surprised. To make a long story short, on May 30th, 1593, Marlowe was in a room at a house in Deptford, that was owned by Dame Eleanor Bull. Kit had been granted bail on his charge of heresy, just as long as he reported daily to the CSC. So no crazy drunken parties for him. There are many theories about what actually happened to Kit, if he was even killed at all (again with the not knowing..where did he go then? poof! Kit goes bye bye...), but basically what I can make out is that he got in a fight with some dude who was also at this house (the lady rented out rooms) and ended up getting stabbed through the eye. Yum. You can see the coroners inquisition here if you want. One day when I am not typing up these silly things, I will read up more about it, cause all of the theories are actually interesting. It is like a murder mystery. Elementary by dear Watson. *pulls on her trusty deer-stalker, and bubble pipe.*
And so we come to another odd end of a Historical Hotties life. Christopher Marlowe, you were cool for being an early secret agent (sing the song everyone!) but unfortunately during your time, they had the rack. And short tempers. And bad murder detectives. So Marlowe, we salute you.