vigilance of the aunt, and gradually the restraints of home life became
irksome beyond the limit of endurance. The interest of the girl in
her admirer increased in like proportion, and he, at an early period
of their acquaintance, discovered that his feelings toward her were
founded upon something more than temporary passion. With all the ardor
of his impetuous nature he prevailed upon her to accept his hand in
marriage; and the safeguards which Manuel Crossford had erected to keep
his daughter fancy free, until he might arrange a suitable marriage,
trembled at the assault and then fell to pieces. In confidence that
the Count would fulfill his promise of marriage, the girl fled from
the home of Bame leaving no clue from which to ascertain the cause of
her flight or the place of her concealment. She was married to Francis
Frazer at St. Peter’s Church on Cornhill.
Suspicions were by Crossford directed against Marlowe, for he knew
nothing of the new suitor, and although he was quietly shadowed on
several occasions, the fruitless result had not yet been sufficient to
satisfy the father that Marlowe was not holding the girl in some secure
hiding-place. At Canterbury and elsewhere Marlowe had been unable
to learn anything concerning the girl since her departure from her
father’s house. Not even a rumor of her marriage had reached his ears,
and more than a year had passed since their last meeting when, beside
the dead body of the Count, she told him of it.
This marriage had proved to be an unhappy one, partially due to the
excessive and unwarranted jealousy of her husband. During the few
months of their married life, they had wandered through various
quarters of London and its vicinity, and at length had reached the
Golden Hind a few days prior to the eventful night of June the first,
1593.
Here Frazer sojourned while making arrangements for leaving with his
wife for the continent. A vessel then lay at the wharf of Deptford upon
which he designed to make the voyage. Against this contemplated move
the wife had remonstrated with such vigor and persistency that despite
her protestations to the effect that her objections arose from a dread
of entering an unknown world, and a desire to become reconciled with
her father, the Count became suspicious that she had plotted to desert
him or at least to thwart his plans.
It was shortly after one of the most violent scenes between them
that Anne saw Tabbard in the hall, as related, and heard his welcome
announcement that the one whom she believed had passed forever out of
her life was not only anxious to see her, but was within call. Upon
that sudden and unexpected communication, if she had had time to
consider she might have formulated a different answer, but with the
remembrances which the mention of Marlowe’s name awakened, her heart
rushed to her lips, and at the instant she caught a glimpse of Frazer,
she gave expression to her longing. It was like an outcry of one in
distress, but founded upon no idea that through her old lover lay
deliverance.
As already stated Frazer had accidentally heard the few words she had
uttered, and it was his actions resulting from his suspicions of a
contemplated elopement that brought about the tragedy at the tavern.
With this digression, explanatory of the events leading up to the
tragedy of that night, we will now return to the point where the door
was closed upon the retreat of Anne.
The hall into which the woman entered, lighted, as it was momentarily,
by the rays from the room faced by the carved panels, became black as
night as she heard the door shut behind her. She found the balustrade,
pushed her hand along its smooth top and at length reached the head
of the stairs. Even then, as her eyes stared into the lower depths,
no amelioration of the darkness appeared. Step by step she descended,
crossing the middle landing, still holding to the balustrade. She had
reached the foot and stood there for the moment trembling over thoughts
of the scene from which she had just fled and apprehensive of present
evil. The way was known to her as clearly as a father’s house to
children. Straight ahead led the hall without a turn to the narrow door
into the inn-yard. Her hand fell from the balustrade, but as it did so
it was caught by another hand, and she felt bungling fingers run across
her face. In vain she attempted to control her terror, but the brain,
already overtaxed, went to pieces like a glass let fall on marble
pavements. She uttered one scream and fainted.
A quiet, like that of a country church at high noon on week days had
been for some time pervading the tap-room of the Golden Hind. The party
at the center table had scattered; the landlord rubbing his eyes, had
disappeared through the door above which hung the cracked painting of
the host in red coat and face betokening welcome; the line of decanters
and bezzling glasses on the shelf, under the long mirror behind the
bar, appeared ready for the dust of at least one quiet half-night to
settle upon it; while outstretched on two chairs, with his drowsy head
leaning on the arm of one of them, lay the tapster, the only human
occupant of the room. The cat had crawled under his arm, and, in his
half sleep, he was mechanically stroking her. Out of this condition he
was aroused by startling sounds in the hall.
He quickly rose to his feet and rushed to the door. The light fell full
upon two persons, a woman lying unconscious at the base of the stairs,
and a drunken actor leaning over her. The latter exhibited a stupefied
countenance, either as the result of a light being flashed so suddenly
upon him, or from the discovery of what lay at his feet. He had hardly
realized that he had clasped a hand or fumbled a face, or at least
nothing more than that of some serving woman of the place, and when he
saw a woman with features of almost transcendent beauty, and of attire
fit for a lady of rank, lying at his feet, he cowered in the light as
one might when apprehended in the commission of a heinous crime.
“Zounds,” exclaimed the tapster, “what’s this snarling about?”
“Good God, man, is she killed?” exclaimed the other leaning over and
attempting to raise the recumbent body at his feet.
Blood was flowing from a gash cut in the woman’s head by the sharp
edge of the stair. The two men picked her up and carried her into
the tap-room, where they placed her in one of the widest chairs. The
tapster recognized her as the lady who had arrived there a few days
previously with the Count, and looked suspiciously at the actor; but,
without asking any questions of the latter, he began bathing her
face in cold water and binding a cloth around her head to stop the
flow of blood. Its current darkly streaked the mass of golden hair
which, having been liberated from the confinement of the hood, fell
disheveled around the high white ruff, in which the lower part of
her face was concealed, and upon the puffed shoulders terminating
the tight, slashed sleeves of vari-colored silk. Her hooded cape of
showy fabric lay upon the floor. Her full gown of blue silk with front
embroidered from the collar down the long pointed doublet and dress
front, comfortably filled the chair. The lamps directly overhead had
been extinguished, and it was the light from the still blazing candles
at the angle of the chimney that flared upon her pallid face.
Several minutes had passed and all attempts at her restoration had
been unavailing. A serious expression had gathered on the face of
the tapster, and the actor looked to have been shaken into sobriety.
Suddenly the two men heard light footsteps in the hallway. The door had
been left open. They looked toward it, and at that moment the figure of
a man passed across the seam of light and was immediately swallowed by
the darkness that lay on the further edge. As the light struck him he
had looked towards its source, but if he recognized any member of the
group or realized the character of the scene which he had momentarily
disturbed, it did not cause him to pause. The sound of the closing of
the door into the inn-yard immediately afterwards echoed through the
hall.
“That was her husband, the Count,” whispered the actor, looking with
amazement at his companion.
“You are wrong. It was Marlowe,” remarked the tapster.
“Nay,” said the actor, “Marlowe was not so attired. It is her husband.
You had better follow him with word of her condition.”
“If I thought you were right,” returned the tapster with considerable
feeling, “I would not stir a step, for I am not anxious to serve the
ruffian. The blow he felled me with was none to my liking. I would do
anything for the lady, but what she needs is what he is now doing. We
will stop him, whoever he is, as he returns.”
A PRECARIOUS EXISTENCE.
_Might first made kings, and laws were then most sure_
_When like the Draco’s they were writ in blood._
--_Jew of Malta, i, 1._
_The bloody book of law,_
_You shall yourself read, in the bitter letter,_
_After your own sense._
--_Othello, i, 3._
On the night of the murder in the old Deptford tavern the man who was
to profit most from the false shadows thrown by the crime and its
concealment was at the Boar’s Head in London. This man was William
Shakespere. Without his volition and unknown to himself the crown of
immortality was being set upon his brows. Just as unconsciously moved
the hands that placed it there. Had the placing of it been designed;
had the person who has worn it all these centuries felt its presence
and coveted it, possibly all cloud that has since obscured his title
might have been removed; but the actors were only puppets in the
hands of the blind goddess of Mischance. The vital flaws remain, and
have been pointed out by the searchers. Their genuineness has been
demonstrated, but the source of title has been misapprehended. The
falsifying of the record of the crime at Deptford being discovered, the
tracing of the title through a deep channel to its true fountain head
is a task easy of accomplishment. It leads to Christopher Marlowe.
With Shakespere were two others, whose lives were inseparably
interwoven with that of his own and with Marlowe’s. One was George
Peele, the dramatist, the other was Christopher Tamworth, the lawyer of
Gray’s Inn.
The Eastcheap tavern, while frequently the gathering place for
roysterers, was also a known resort for strolling players,
pamphleteers, dramatists and other men of genius and ambition, who were
looked upon with suspicion by a government that imagined greater danger
from a middle class with intellect and ability of expression than from
a powerful nobility, or an ignorant multitude of serfs.
At times, crowds in bacchanalian riot burnt out the hours of the night;
again the peace of a cloister pervaded there, and from the lower bay,
and higher dormer windows the lights of workers’ candles gleamed.
Eastcheap Street might rattle with tumbrils, carts and horses’ hoofs,
and the air be shattered by the cries of costard mongers, tooting of
hautboys, or the ringing of bellmen, still the thick walls of the
Boar’s Head enticed within them those who worked out their deliverance
in solitary effort and meditation.
The three men were in a spacious room at the rear corner of one of
the upper stories of the famous tavern. One window opening through
the thick stone wall, faced the church-yard of St. Michaels with its
drooping trees, its tenants of near three hundred years of burial,
and its stately edifice wherein the fishmongers and butchers from
near shops and stalls congregated. Clambering vines rooted in rich
soil, framed this deep and narrow window in green; and in breezy
hours sent to the ears of indwellers a rustle sweetly suggestive of
the far distant woods of Kent or Surrey. In the wall facing Crooked
Lane another window overlooked a traveled way so narrow that hands
outstretched from facing windows on either side could clasp each
other. On the pavement below, a foot passer might squeeze by a costard
monger’s cart, but two carts abreast could not pass. Projecting
platforms, under fronting doors with narrow stairs descending to the
street, and boards thrust out from windows whereon hung linen drying,
or boxed plants, assisted in obscuring the light.
The room was the living apartment of George Peele, and for several
years during his separation from his wife, had been the retreat of that
genius, where in intervals between mad dissipations he had written “The
Famous Chronicle History of King Edward the First.” The innate taste
of this individual, as displayed in the richness of the imagery that
characterized his plays, could not but reveal itself in the external
surroundings over which he had control. His purse had never been
sufficiently distended for him to contract for luxurious apartments, or
at least distended long enough for him to pause in the wild revel which
always followed close on the heels of the receipt of money for a play,
to consider any question of comfort in the near future, consequently
both in seasons of poverty and moments of affluence this one room at
the Boar’s Head was his permanent headquarters.
The blackened ceiling remained as he had found it; the ground work of
dingy wall on all sides had not been changed except by the articles
hung against it, and these were as varied as a prodigal hand could
gather. A magnificent piece of tapestry from the looms of Flanders,
bearing upon its blue groundwork the red figure of a horse and crowned
rider, covered one entire side of the room. It was said to have been
the gift of Queen Elizabeth, for whom, in 1584, Peele had written the
comedy of “The Arraignment of Paris,” and had been bestowed after her
hearing of the poet’s fancy for the hanging as he had first seen it in
the banqueting house of the royal palace at Whitehall. On low stands
before it were two black Greek vases of great value.
Against another wall were two long halbards, crossed just below their
heads, whose bright steel flashed back the light of the lamp. The ends
of their poles touched the floor, and between them was a long Norman
hauberk of trellised plate and a kite-shaped shield as rusty as six
centuries could make them. The chimney place was narrow, deep and
black. Great brass firedogs was all that it contained at that season.
Above it the shelf, formed by the receding of the chimney, was crowded
with bronze and white marble statuettes, among which, one of the queen
overtopped the others of more ancient sculpture.
The low iron bedstead of rude manufacture, almost concealed in the
recess formed by the projecting chimney, was evidently a fixture. Of
the same category were the chairs and the table. Over the latter a lamp
designed to aid a scholar in his lucubrations, burned steadily from a
bracket in the wall.
Books and papers were scattered on this table with inkhorn and quills,
and a score of volumes on the uncarpeted floor. A copy of Homer’s
Iliad lay open, with printed pages touching the wooden surface of the
table, and its embossed cover displayed. Besides this were two volumes
of Cicero, an English translation of the tragedies of Seneca, and of
Jocaste of Euripides, of the edition of 1577. Half a dozen other Greek
and Latin classics, in the costly bindings of John Reynes, were heaped
so that the light of the lamp displayed them to advantage. In meaner
bindings, Holinshed’s Chronicles lay open on the floor with the Mirror
of Magistrates piled upon it, and in the same heap were several other
volumes of cotemporary dramatists. Bundles of manuscript dramas were on
one end of the table, and scattered papers bore on their faces the work
of the master of the den.
It was late at night, and the three friends, for such they were, had
been together in the room for several hours. The play upon which Peele
was then engaged, was designed by the writer for performance by Lord
Pembroke’s actors of which Shakespere was then a member.[21] He had
been reading it for their appreciation and suggestion, and now, having
finished, they were conversing upon other topics. Tobacco smoke from
the pipe of Tamworth rose in clouds, and in a wide arm-chair against
the tapestry, Shakespere, also smoking, was listening to the lawyer’s
remarks.
“The crime,” said he, “is blasphemy and not apostasy.”
“How do you distinguish them?” inquired Peele.
“The last is renouncing one’s religion after having professed it; the
other is reviling the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost.”
“Aye, and the crime of blasphemy he has committed.”
“No question of that.”
“Have you a copy of the paper?” asked Shakespere, addressing Peele.
“Yes, the same that was sent to the Queen.” [Note 31.]
He drew from his inner pocket a folded paper, and holding it so that
the light struck full upon it he read: “The first beginnynge of
religion was only to keep men in awe.”
“There may be some truth in that,” interrupted Tamworth.
“But wait,” continued Peele, “here is the sentence that sticks and
perhaps gives ground for the charge, ‘if the Jews among whom he was
born did crucify him they best knew him and whence he came.’”
“Truly that is blasphemous,” remarked Tamworth, “but I do not believe
that he wrote it. Doth it profess on its face to be his?”
“No, they are simply charges made against him by Richard Bame, and he
is an obscure person; but the Queen hath considered it seriously and a
warrant hath been issued by one of the justices for his arrest.”
“Whose, Bame’s?”
“No, Marlowe’s.”
“What is the punishment upon conviction?” asked Shakespere.
“You need not add the words ‘upon conviction,’ for that followeth an
arrest as surely as night followeth day. It is declared by law to
be fine and imprisonment, and other infamous corporal punishment,”
answered Tamworth.
“Of what nature is such punishment?”
“Slitting the nose; cutting off an ear; a seat in the pillory, and the
like,” answered Peele before the lawyer could speak.
“Thou knoweth the law, too, Peele, like a solicitor. Hast thou ever
been a student and lodged at Clement’s Inn?” asked Tamworth with a
smile.
“Nay, but in one play I had put blasphemous words in the mouth of a
dissolute character, and, before its presentation, the same was pointed
out to me by the actor whose part it was to read it, and forthwith we
went to the Temple and there learned the definition of the offense and
the penalty.”
“And on this opinion of one who has read no better lines than those to
be found in Justinian or Littleton, and made no professions of ability
to criticise, thou expurgated what to me seemed the most stirring
passages of the play. Wilt thou let the light of thy torch be blanketed
so that only black smoke can roll forth? Fie upon thee, man!” said
Shakespere with animation.
“You know not of what you speak,” exclaimed Tamworth. “The corporal
punishment may be more severe than as defined by Peele. His definition
is correct, but the judges have often stretched the words to a greater
extent. What if they saw fit to apply such infamous punishment that
death would necessarily result?”
“Could they do that?”
“Aye, and they have. Death for blasphemy maketh one smile at the laws
of Draco, but such hath been and only four years since.”
“You speak of Kett,” remarked Peele.
“Yes, Francis Kett.”
“And what of him?” asked Shakespere.
“He was burnt,” said Tamworth, solemnly.
“At the stake?”
“True, at Norwich in February, 1589, for questioning the Divinity of
Christ, and giving utterance to other unorthodox views.”[22]
“O Diabole!” muttered Peele.
“Is there any safety in any occupation?” inquired Shakespere.
“Well, there is certainly little in your profession, my good fellow,
unless you are licensed, or enrolled.[23] The penalty of being
apprehended as a strolling player, or as a common actor of interludes,
is probably known to thee, and to thee, too, Peele.”
“Yes; whipping, and burning with a hot iron through the gristle of
the right ear,”[24] interrupted Peele, “for I saw the like punishment
administered to Endermon, who is now with Henslowe at the Rose.”[25]
“And,” continued Tamworth, “it is because of this act of Elizabeth that
you, Shakespere, are enrolled as a servant of Lord Pembroke.”
“A sorry wretch you are,” laughed Peele, looking at Shakespere, “so
miserably considered that in order to gain the plaudits of the pit you
must attach yourself to a licensed company.”
“And in what better condition are you?” asked Tamworth, with a smile.
“Dost thou not know that in the law a dramatist is classed with
vagrants? That any line of what you, Peele, write, may be interpreted
as blasphemy or treason; and that as the judge before whom you may be
dragged passes upon the meaning, force or effect of the questionable
writing,[26] you are virtually deprived of a trial by jury? And upon
what slender thread your liberty would hang! Aye, e’en your life.
Moreover, the judge pompously declares that he looks into the spirit
instead of the letter, and thus between the lines he reads an avowal of
popery and pronounces you a Papist.”
“Aye, then the sentence comes ‘To the Tower,’” exclaimed Shakespere.
“The rats’ dungeon!” he said, solemnly.
“And is not the pious poet, Robert Southwell, there now on the same
charge, popery?”[27] asked Peele.
“True,” said Shakespere.
“And hath he not,” continued Peele, “in cankering languishment written:
“‘I often look upon my face
Most ugly, grisly, bare and thin;
I often view the hollow place
Where eyes and nose had sometime been;
I see the bones across that lie,
Yet little think that I must die.’”
“Is anything more wanting to restrain one in the flourish of one’s pen?”
“Next we shall hear of prizes for stupidity,” ejaculated Shakespere,
replacing his pipe between his lips, from where it had been withdrawn
during the interval of legal discussion. “My wonder is,” he continued,
“that you ever write a line beyond God save the Queen and damn the
Pope. Praise God, that my temporary calling is licensed, and that not
yet have I been tempted into fields where pitfalls lie concealed, and
all else is open to the blazing sky.” [Note 29.]
“Well said, friend Will, but let once the honied praise for children of
thy brain melt into thy being, and no threat or dread of bodily ill can
keep thee wholly from the permanent expression of thy thoughts. And now
it is my livelihood,” returned Peele.
“For one of thy calling it would be safer to live in obscurity,”
remarked Tamworth.
“Yes, as though dead,” the dramatist answered in a whisper, as though
there were others who might overhear his words.
A knock sounded at the door. The two visitors looked at Peele
inquiringly. He said “Come in,” but the door did not open, and again
the knock sounded.
“The fellow is like a beggar for coin who refuses a purse without
looking into it,” remarked Peele, arising and going to the door.
“More like a lady who wishes to know who is within before venturing,”
said Shakespere significantly.
Peele had opened the door. A man stood there in the passage and raised
his finger warningly. Peele paused in the greeting he was about to
utter, and then, moving his head slightly backward in gesture, said in
a low voice: “Shakespere and Tamworth.”
“And none other?” asked the man.
“None.”
He stepped within, but did not seem to notice Peele’s extended hand.
“Lock the door,” he said.
“Right,” said Peele, “the warrant is already out.”
“What, so soon?” exclaimed the other, throwing his hand to his face,
which grew ghastly as he stared at his friend.
“Marlowe,” exclaimed Shakespere in greeting, “even now we were talking
about you.”
The man addressed continued, gazing speechlessly at Peele, who said,
“Well ’twas no more than we were apprehensive of when last we met.”
“You talk in riddles,” gasped the other, “’Tis only two hours since his
death. A warrant already issued: You know it? My God! do I dream?”
Peele now displayed a questioning face; “Riddles; two hours since his
death?” he asked, and then after a short pause, continued: “I mean the
charge of blasphemy. That warrant is out. Of what do you speak?”
Marlowe’s visage cleared to some extent.
“Ah! I understand,” he murmured.
He removed his hat, and sank as though in exhaustion into a cushioned
chair close before the chimney. Tamworth and Shakespere were already
up, and the three had gathered before him.
Shakespere spoke sympathizingly: “They are not likely to search in this
quarter. To-morrow I will intercede with the Queen, for she has already
given me recognition--”
“And the offense is only of an ecclesiastical nature,” continued
Tamworth.