On 30 May 1599, six years after the apparent death of Christopher Marlowe, a man presented himself for admission to St. Alban’s, the English college at Valladolid in Spain. In the college register—the Liber Alumnorum—he is identified as Jo(hann)es Matheus (John Matthew), but in the right margin is written al(ias) Christopherus Marlerus (Christopher Marler—or Marlowe?). Although not all of those who believe Marlowe to have survived 1593 take this to be the same man, there are several who do. So let us take a look at just what we know or can surmise about him, and in particular whether he is a John Matthew using Christopher Marlowe as an alias, or a Christopher Marlowe calling himself John Matthew. In doing this I must thank Ros Barber, Michael Frohnsdorff, Isabel Gortázar and John Baker, each of whom has provided valuable and relevant information.
The main reason why the arrival of this man at Valladolid is known about is because of a letter discovered by Leslie Hotson and transcribed in his The Death of Christopher Marlowe.1 It was written from Pisa in Italy by William Vaughan to the Privy Council and includes the following:
1602, July 4/14. I thought it the part of her Majesty's loyal subject in these my travels to forewarn the Council of certain caterpillars, I mean Jesuits and seminary priests, who, as I am credibly informed by two several men, whose names, under your pardon, according to promise, instantly I conceal, are to be sent from the English seminary at Valladolid, in the kingdom of Castile in Spain, to pervert and withdraw her Majesty's loyal subjects from their due obedience to her. I have therefore sent notice to some of you from Calais in France of some such persons, and of their dealing, the one of whom, George Askew, as he then termed himself, being made priest at Douay in Flanders, is taken, as I understand, and lies prisoner in the Clink. . . .So in 1602 Vaughan has learned from two different people of this man at Valladolid who "will be called" (i.e. wants to be known as) Christopher Marlor, and who had an M.A. from Trinity College in Cambridge.
In the said seminary there is . . . one Christopher Marlor (as he will be called), but yet for certainty his name is Christopher, sometime master in arts of Trinity College in Cambridge, of very low stature, well set, of a black round beard, not yet priest, but to come over in the mission of the next year ensuing. . . .
Before admission at the English College the applicant was questioned and the answers recorded in their Liber Primis Examinis. Here he had told them that he was born and educated in Cambridge, that he was 27 years of age and had been at Cambridge University for seven years, gaining both B.A. and M.A. degrees.2 Marlowe the poet/playwright would have been 35 years old by then.
When we look at who was at Trinity at about the right time, however, we find both a John Matthew and a Christopher Morley. This is what J. A. Venn's Alumni Cantabrigienses3 has to say:
MATTHEW, JOHN. Matric. pens. from TRINITY, Michs. 1588; scholar from Westminster; B.A. 1592-3; M.A. 1596. One of these names of Tortworth, Gloucs., minister. Will (P.C.C.) 1628.He matriculated from (was accepted at) Trinity as a pensioner (one who pays for his keep) in the Michaelmas (Autumn) term, having been awarded a scholarship to pay for it on his behalf.
MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER. Matric. pens, from Trinity, Michs. 1578; B.A. 1582-3; M.A. 1586. Fellow. Will proved (V.C.C.)4This Christopher Morley was therefore somewhat older, but held a fellowship at Trinity most probably—as we shall see—during the whole time that John Matthew was there. Before looking at that, however, let us first see what we can find out about the earlier life of John Matthew.
According to the Liber Primis Examinis, he told them that he was 27 years old when he arrived in Valladolid, and Venn tells us that he went to Westminster school. One entry in the parish register for St. Margaret, Westminster, may therefore be relevant—a John Mathew, son of William Mathew, was baptized there on 24th August 1571, which would indeed make him 27 on that date. Furthermore, another John Mathew, son of Thomas Mathew, was baptized in St. Clement Danes, Westminster, on 14 October 1571.5
Whether either of them was the same John Matthew or not, this would place him at Westminster School in the years leading up to 1588, and make him a contemporary of Ben Jonson, a year younger than him, who is believed to have been there from about 1579. Another contemporary, some 8 years older but not leaving until 1589, was the Welshman Hugh Holland, who over 30 years later would contribute a sonnet to the First Folio, maybe at his schoolfellow Jonson's request? That all three later converted to Catholicism may be a coincidence, but maybe not?6
John Matthew left Westminster for Trinity in 1588, followed there a year later by Hugh Holland. As we can see above, he achieved his B.A. in 1592-3 and M.A. in 1596. In that same year, the year of his departure from Cambridge, Christopher Morley died. That Morley was still at Trinity is indicated by the fact that the records apparently show him as being present until the year of his death, 1596.7 Whether Matthew was there when it happened or not, he would have certainly known about it.
According to the Liber Primis Examinis (in Louis Ule's translation),8 the applicant for admission "was converted to acknowledge and profess the Catholic faith by Father Thomas Wright, and he was later received into the church by Father Hugo, at that time delayed in the Clink prison for fifteen days, before he left England ..."
Father Wright had returned to England from Valladolid, after some 18 years in Europe, on 8 June 1595. One of Anthony Bacon's sources in Spain, Anthony Rolston, had been instrumental in ensuring his safe return, with Bacon getting him the protection of the Earl of Essex.9 His activities nevertheless got him imprisoned a year or so later. So the "conversion" most probably happened within that first year, while Wright was still closely associated with Anthony Bacon and Essex (and also while a certain Monsieur Le Doux was under their protection too).
From England, our man "was sent to St. Omer (in France) with letters of recommendation by Father Garnet of the Society of Jesus." The College at St. Omer (Audomaropolis), founded by Robert Persons in about 1591, was established for the education of Catholic laymen, and not those aspiring to priesthood.
At Valladolid "he humbly asked admission to this college that he might become a priest and be sent to do the work of the Lord in England." From the College's Liber Alumnorum: "Joannes Matheus (alias Christopher Marlerus in the right margin) Cantabrigiensis admissus est in hoc Collegium die 30 Maii an° 1599." John Matthew alias Christopher Marler (?) of Cambridge is admitted into this college on 30 May 1599.
At this point we are faced with the main question. What was his true identity? John Matthew of Westminster or Christopher Marlowe of Canterbury? What would have happened in each case?
1) John Matthew, of Westminster and Trinity, B.A. and M.A., arrives there with two companions and seeks admission. He gives them true information about himself, other than where he was born and went to school (perhaps protecting his family?). He says that he would like to use a pseudonym from now on, however, and chooses the name of one of the Fellows at his college with whom he had been closely associated for eight years or so, but who had died three years earlier. From then on he is known as Christopher Marlowe (in various forms), "master in arts of Trinity College in Cambridge" as both he and the origin of his pseudonym were.
2) The "dead" playwright Christopher Marlowe, of Canterbury and Corpus Christi, B.A. and M.A., arrives there with two companions and seeks admission. He tells them a pack of lies about who he is, pretending for no obvious reason to be John Matthew, a real and still living person some eight years younger than himself (with an M.A. from Trinity) whom he presumably knew about, although there is no evidence to support this assumption. He says that he would like to use an alias from now on, however, and chooses his real name, the single most dangerous name (for him) that he could possibly use.
It has also been suggested that the arrival of the party at Valladolid on 30 May must have been planned deliberately to coincide with the date of Marlowe’s alleged death. We are therefore asked to believe that three people set off from St. Omer at the northern tip of France to travel over 800 miles (and across the Pyrenees) to Valladolid in north-central Spain, but before setting out decide to time their departure and adjust their speed to make sure that they arrive precisely on a date which happens to be the anniversary of what was probably the worst thing that ever happened to one of them, and which he is also presumably unable to divulge to the others? I find this impossible to believe.
Since, with or without the coincidence of dates, the first of those two options is clearly so much more likely than the other, let us see whether any of the rest of the Matthew/Marlowe story works against it.
First, we need to go back to William Vaughan's letter of 1602, the one in which he says he has been told by two different people that in the seminary there is "one Christopher Marlor (as he will be called), but yet for certainty his name is Christopher, sometime master in arts of Trinity College in Cambridge."
A couple of years earlier, in his Golden Grove, Vaughan had provided the best description of Marlowe's death to appear until, largely because of his words "Detford" and "Ingram," the inquest details were discovered in 1925. In this he wrote of "Christopher Marlow by profession a play-maker," saying "it so hapned, that at Detford, a little village about three miles distant from London, as he meant to stab with his ponyard one named Ingram, that had inuited him thither to a feast, and was then playing at tables, he quickely perceyving it, auoyded the thrust, that withall drawing out his dagger for his defence, hee stabd this Marlow into the eye, in such sort, that his braines comming out at the daggers point, hee shortlie after dyed."10
So the first person Vaughan, on hearing the name, would be reminded of would have been the playwright, whereas there is no reason to think that John Matthew knew anything about Marlowe at all, tucked away as he had been in Cambridge for almost the whole of Marlowe's short career.
Matthew must have been using the identity of his friend from Trinity, but Vaughan—recognizing the name of the supposedly dead "atheist" Marlowe—thought that the Privy Council should be told about it just in case it really was the same man. He apparently knows nothing of an alias, but says that the man "will be called" (says his name is) Christopher Marlor. The surname may not be precisely the same as "Marlow," but there is no doubt the Christian name is right: "but yet for certainty his name is Christopher."
There is no reason to think that Vaughan himself knew what the dead poet would have looked like, but he obtained a description of the seminary man from his sources so that the Council might be able to ascertain if it was in fact Marlowe. He was "of very low stature, well set, of a black round beard." Further information to enable them to identify him—Marlowe’s qualifications most probably being unknown to him—is that this man was "sometime master in arts of Trinity College in Cambridge." This would certainly have ruled the playwright out, even in the unlikely event that the physical description had not!
Returning to the English College at Valladolid, we see that Matthew had taken the oath (fecit iuramentum) on 2 February 1600, was ordained priest (factus est sacerdos) in September 1602 and, as Vaughan had predicted, was sent into England in early spring 1603 (missus est in Anglia 1603 primo vere).
In England, he seems to have managed to remain at liberty pursuing his mission for over a year, but was eventually arrested and locked up in the Gatehouse prison from 3 August until 23 September 1604.11 Amongst the Gatehouse bills it says: "Committed by my Lo: Chief Justice Christopher Marlowe, alias Mathews, a seminarie preist oweth for 7 weeks and 2 daies being close prisoner at rate of 14s the week 5li 2s. For washing 2s 4d. -- 5li 4s 4d."12 The order in which the names were given would not have implied (as it perhaps would today) that the first name was the "real" one. In fact, the entry preceding it is identical other than the names, which, according to Anstruther, has the pseudonym first. Although Anstruther cites the pardon rolls (C.67/9) as referring to "a cleric named John Matthew alias Marley of the City of Canterbury" it in fact says Cambridge, not Canterbury,13 and therefore reflects his Valladolid claim that he was born and educated there. In passing we may note that this may well have applied to his alter ego Christopher Morley. Another Christopher Morley (although clearly not the same one) was married in All Saints, Cambridge, on 14 November 1568.14
These records pose a problem, whether he really was John Matthew or the playwright Christopher Marlowe.
1) If it was John Matthew operating under the Marlowe name, why was he prepared to divulge his real name too? Could it be that any possible danger to his family had passed? There was a William Matthew who apparently died early in 1603 and may have been his father. Since he was pardoned, perhaps the revealing of his true identity was a price he had to pay. There is also the possibility, of course, given his mentor Father Wright's connections with Anthony Bacon's network of agents, that Matthew had been a double agent all along.
2) If it was Christopher Marlowe using John Matthew as an alias, the question of why he would reveal his real name to the Lord Chief Justice and risk having it passed on to Popham’s colleagues is totally inexplicable. Whitgift had died earlier that year, but Richard Bancroft—his successor-in-waiting as Archbishop of Canterbury—would have been just as much of a danger to Marlowe as Whitgift would have been. Whether they had been privy to what really happened to Marlowe in 1593 or not, any news his arrival in London in 1603/4 reaching the ears of Bancroft would have surely meant his real death this time. For any return to England, deep cover (as in the case of Monsieur Le Doux?) would have been absolutely essential.
It may seem a bit surprising that all that happened to him (given the purpose of his being sent back into England) was banishment, but this does not appear to have been all that unusual by then. For example, according to the DNB entry for Thomas Wright, above, some 30 priests—including Wright—were banished at the time of James's accession in 1603.15
Anyway, according to Anstruther, "He set out again for England from Douai 10 Dec 1604."16 After this the trail would have gone cold had it not been for that comment by Venn: "One of these names of Tortworth, Gloucs., minister." Was this our John Matthew? One is reminded of the theory that the double agent Richard Baines (having been ordained priest at Rheims before his discovery and confession) finished up as rector of the parish of Waltham in Lincolnshire.17 Could it be that John Matthew, as suggested above, really "had been a double agent all along"? An interesting possibility, enhanced by his having been "converted" by Father Wright, who had been helped in his 1595 return to England by Anthony Bacon's agent Anthony Rolston.18
If it was our John Matthew, his will was proved (by which time he would have had to be dead!) by the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (P.C.C.) in 1628.
To conclude, the interesting story of John Matthew (choosing the name of his friend Christopher Morley as an alias) makes complete sense to me. The story of it having been a surviving Christopher Marlowe (picking from goodness-knows-where the name of someone there is no reason for him ever to have heard of, let alone known any details) really makes no sense at all.
Peter Farey
© Peter Farey, July 2010
Peter Farey has been manning the Marlovian barricades on the internet for the past 12 years. His Marlowe Page is one of the most respected sites about Marlowe on the web. He is a founding member of the International Marlowe-Shakespeare Society.
1Hotson, Leslie J. 1925. The Death of Christopher Marlowe.
2Ule, Louis. 1992. Christopher Marlowe (1564-1609): A Biography. p. 448.
3Venn, J. A. 1903. Alumni Cantabrigenses. p. 161.
4Venn, http://www.archive.org/details/p1alumnicantabri03univuoft. I am grateful to Ros Barber for explaining to me that VCC refers to the records of the Vice-Chancellor’s Court.
5Family Search website http://www.familysearch.org
6Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 2004.
7Ros Barber discovered that the 1589-1592 Buttery records from Trinity show Christopher Morley as being present throughout that time. The last recorded payment for his fellowship was in 1596, however, and his will was proved by the University Vice-Chancellor’s Court, indicating that he must have still been there when he died.
8Ule, p. 448.
9LPL Bacon Papers MS.651 f.232-2.
10Vaughan’s words as transcribed in A.D.Wraight and Virginia F. Stern’s In Search of Christopher Marlowe. 1965. p. 307.
11Anstrother, Godfrey. 1968. The Seminary Priests: A Dictionary of the Secular Clergy of England and Wales, 1558-1850, Vol 1. His source is given as The Catholic Record Society (CRS 53, 266).
12Ule, p. 501.
13I am grateful to Isabel Gortázar for pointing out this inaccuracy in Anstruther’s work.
14Family Search website http://www.familysearch.org
15Oxford DNB.
16Anstruther, citing (DD 63—Douai Diaries [CRS 10, 11]).
17In an article by Constance Brown Kuriyama, accepted by Charles Nicholl. But Roy Kendall, showing Baines would have had to be in two places at once, refutes this idea in his Christopher Marlowe and Richard Baines: Journeys Through the Elizabethan Underground. 2004. p. 114.
18Oxford DNB and LPL Bacon Papers MS.651 f.232-2 (Copy of letter from another agent, Anthony Standen, to Anthony Rolston).
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16 comments:
Thanks Peter for untangling all of this. A brilliant piece of research!
John Mathew is a "tempting" link to Marlowe post 1593, but Mr. Farey puts it all to rest. Good show.
Thanks, Peter, for saving me the trouble to explain all the details. As you know, I believe Mathews was Marlowe.
There are some things that I'd like to comment. The way you express it, you seem to find objectionable the fact that Marlowe would have had to tell "a pack of lies" in Valladolid.
Marlowe had been telling packs of lies not only since 1593, but even since the fifteen-eighties, when he infiltrated, just as he was doing now, the Seminary College of Rheims. So your disapproving comment is either disingenious or naive.
As for Vaughan's letter: This long letter contains what appears to be accurate information on the names, aliases, physical traits and expected dates for travelling to England of several men, including one Christopher Marlor "as he would be called, but for certain his name is Christopher". That the information is accurate is proven by the fact that he is quite right about Mathews' proposed dates for returning yo England.
As you say, the words "as he would be called" should mean this is Mathews' alias, but, Vaughan goes on to clarify that Christopher (not John) is this man's real name.
And here you leap to the extraordinary conclusion that Vaughan after having provided accurate information about everything and everybody else, decides to dispense with the truth about John Mathews' real name, and sends incorrect information to the Privy Council, following (according to you) a false hunch.
I assume Vaughan suspected the truth about who this "Christopher" may be, but, as you say, he had published in his Golden Grove that Marlowe was dead, so perhaps he would not have been so keen for his hunch to be proven right and his book wrong.
In these circumstances, I would take for granted that Vaughan made quite sure that the man's real name was indeed Christopher, not John, before sending such information to Their Lordships.
Last, but not least: May I ask why were you so keen to publish a counter-Mathews theory even before anyone had proposed a pro-Mathews' one? .
Hi Isabel, I'd like to take up your "Last, but not least" question first, and come back to some of your other points later:
"May I ask why were you so keen to publish a counter-Mathews theory even before anyone had proposed a pro-Mathews' one?"
As you know, Isabel, this piece was written and made available to you and others over a year ago, so I'm not sure where you get the idea that I was "keen" to publish it! In the meantime, I had hoped to discuss it with you but you preferred not to. So when Carlo recently asked me if I had something for his blog, it seemed as good an opportunity as any for it finally to see the light of day.
Your claim that there has been no "pro-Mathews" theory proposed has me flummoxed, however, since this was a part of Marlovian lore long before you started taking an interest in the subject. Other than Hotson's original discovery, of course, I first became aware of it in Louis Ule's 1995 "Christopher Marlowe, 1564-1607, A Biography" (pp.488-452), and I believe that John Baker had an item on the subject in "Notes & Queries" a year or two after that. He certainly had an essay on the subject on his website. You must also know, having been there yourself, that Michael Frohnsdorff spoke about it at the Globe Shakespeare Authorship Conference in 2004. Whilst several of us have added and continue to add further snippets of information since then, I see no reason why I should have delayed presenting my own take on it any longer.
Peter Farey
Hi Isabel,
Now to your other comments.
"The way you express it, you seem to find objectionable the fact that Marlowe would have had to tell "a pack of lies" in Valladolid."
No, I have no feelings about it one way or the other. I was merely stating what would have been the case had it been a surviving Christopher Marlowe who turned up at Valladolid that day, and compared this with what would have happened if it had been John Matthew.
"...when he infiltrated, just as he was doing now, the Seminary College of Rheims"
There is no evidence that Marlowe ever went to Rheims. This ubiquitous error comes from a misreading of the Privy Council's 1587 note.
"And here you leap to the extraordinary conclusion that Vaughan after having provided accurate information about everything and everybody else, decides to dispense with the truth about John Mathews' real name, and sends incorrect information to the Privy Council, following (according to you) a false hunch."
Since Vaughan makes no mention of the name John (or Matthew) the most obvious conclusion is that he knew nothing about it. And why would he? He is reporting hearsay from two different people who are reporting what they have heard about this "Christopher Marlor" in Valladolid. If he was using this as an alias, how would they know his real name? I see no reason for thinking that Vaughan didn't report completely and accurately what he had been told by them.
Peter Farey
Well, Peter; it seems we will have a small discussion after all.
As to my "last but not least" comment: We all know that many people have attempted to deny the possibility that Mathews was Marlowe; I am still surprised that you should have been keen at this stage to publish you support of their denial.
Surely, it would be wonderful if we could prove that he was Marlowe after all?
Luckily for old Marlowe, I'm not giving up; your piece did not convince me when you sent it to me some time ago, and does not convince me now. I believe you are mistaken and will try to prove it eventually.
Peter:
In his letter Vaughan describes twelve different men; their descriptions are rather detailed, including one "lisping" and another one "purblind", plus the color of their hair, the thickness or otherwise of their beards, their height, built, etc. So if he has not seen them personally in Valladolid before going to Pisa, he has very meticulous informers inside the College. I'm afraid "hearsay" is out of the question.
Vaughan gives the names these men use at the College, (they are the same names that appear in the Annals of the College, as opposed to the "entries"), but he is aware that many of those names are aliases, by expressions such as "goes by the name" or words to that effect. He doesn't seem to be bothered about whether the names he has been given are their real names or not.
Except for one: "Moreover, one Christopher Marlor (n160) (as he will be called) but yet for certainty his name is Christopher", etc.
This is the only name about which he makes this sort of comment. He knows Christopher Marlor is supposed to be an alias ("as he will be called") but he also knows that this man's real name is "Christopher".
You suggest he as never heard of John Mathews, but he not only knows the entry number, 160, (the entry is under the name of John Mathews) but also that he was "master in arts at Trinity College, Cambridge". So once again, either he saw the entry himself, or his informers sent him the details of this entry as well as eleven others. I find it reasonable to suppose that one of such details would be the name that appears in the entry, John Mathews, especially as Mathews alias was unusually written on the margin, as if it had been an afterthought; maybe even decided after he swore the oath in 1601.
So, yes I attach value to the fact that Vaughan took the trouble to inform Their Lordships that this man's real name was Christopher, something he doesn't do with any of the others aliases. I also suspect he did it on purpose, because he suspected this may be Marlowe. But I also deduct from the painstaking inclusion of all relevant details about twelve different men, that Vaughan would not have written that "for certainty his name was Christopher" without making damn sure that was true.
An English spy in Valladolid in 1599 was in the right place at the right time, from a politico- historical point of view; so rather than bang my head against a brick-wall trying to prove that this wasn't Marlowe, I am starting from the wonderful probability that he was.
As I understand it, Isabel, you think that, by faking his death, Marlowe escaped almost certain torture, trial and execution at the hands of Whitgift and his minions because of his beliefs. It must therefore have been absolutely crucial that neither Whitgift nor his followers (Bancroft, Popham and others) had the slightest inkling that Marlowe's death had been faked and that he was really still alive.
Can you therefore explain to us why Marlowe would have been so stupid as to draw everyone's attention (via Vaughan for example) to the fact that he was indeed still alive in Valladolid and (even worse) that it wasn't really John Matthew held by Popham in the Gatehouse, but the Christopher Marlowe whom everyone had until now believed to be dead?
Peter Farey
Hi Isabel,
Thank you for the information about the rest of Vaughan's letter, which I confess that I had never read in its entirety. However, I see that it is now online at http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=111913 .
What is immediately clear to me is that I overstated the possible importance Vaughan attached to this particular person. He is just one of the list of eleven people in Valladolid whom his informants had named and described to Vaughan. That he had any suspicion about Marlor having been the dead playwright now seems most unlikely to me.
Your argument that "for certainty his name is Christopher" concerned a possible alias breaks down in the absence of any mention of there being one (or indeed what it was), and because there is a better explanation in the possible variations (Marler, Marlor, Marlow, Morley) of the surname. There may be some doubt that Marlor is exactly right, but Christopher certainly is.
May I ask where the "(n160)" that you quote after the name Marlor comes from? It has never appeared in any of the transcripts I have seen before, and isn't in the one I cite above either. Are you sure that this is Matthew's entry number, and not the number of an endnote added by the editor of your source?
Finally, your last sentence, "rather than bang my head against a brick-wall trying to prove that this wasn't Marlowe, I am starting from the wonderful probability that he was" makes my heart sink. In my view that's how Oxfordians think, and in my view that's where Oxfordians go wrong.
Peter Farey
Seeing that you believe everyone in the Privy Council agreed to Marlowe's escape, you shouldn't have a problem with that, Peter. According to you, they all knew he was alive and would have expected him to turn up within a Catholic network; might even had placed him there on purpose.
If you have read my comments to your interpretation of the Lioness/snake speech, you know I suspect that Whitgift "et al" were aware that he was alive before the "old lioness" died. So I don't have a problem with it either.
While he remained in Spain he was safe from Whitgift; and on his return, the name of Marlowe would have given him instant access to Cecil. First-hand class information from the Spanish court in 1603 was something that both Robert Cecil and King James would have appreciated and even rewarded.
You seem reluctant to accept that Marlowe was a spy. Spies usually a): tell lies) and b): infiltrate the enemy's camp. Queen Elizabeth's enemies were the Catholics led by the King of Spain (the Vatican did not have armies or fleets to invade England). The Spymasters were the Jesuits; the KGB centers were the Colleges; their rank and file were the seminarie- priests.
So, unless you think Marlowe was looking for WMD in Iraq, you might consider that the probability of a man trained in Divinity doing spy-work anywhere but among the Catholics and, preferably in their centers of learning, is remote. if he wasn't in Rheims in 1586 he would have been in similar place, spying on Catholic plans in re to Mary Queen of Scots.
The fairy tales about Marlowe becoming librarian to an Italian Duke, or a trusted courier to a Catholic French King, are just that: fairy tales. While Essex was in power the situation would have been relatively comfortable and even gratifying, traveling to the Empire and Venice included. From 1599 onwards that was finished.
For all we know, it may have been Cecil who sent him to Valladolid. But even if Cecil didn't; if I had been Anthony Bacon giving advice to Marlowe in the spring of 1599, that's exactly where I would have sent him.
Isabel Gortazar said...
"Seeing that you believe everyone in the Privy Council agreed to Marlowe's escape, you shouldn't have a problem with that, Peter. According to you, they all knew he was alive and would have expected him to turn up within a Catholic network; might even had placed him there on purpose."
No you really mustn't do that Isabel. The question is whether there is a consistency in your scenario, not whether one bit of yours fits in with one bit of mine!
"If you have read my comments to your interpretation of the Lioness/snake speech, you know I suspect that Whitgift "et al" were aware that he was alive before the "old lioness" died. So I don't have a problem with it either."
If the Lioness/snake speech really is an intentional analogy, the one message we must take from it is that there was a non-negotiable deal that Marlowe must do nothing whatsoever which might give the impression he was still alive. What (according to you) he did both in Valladolid and London would have been a clear breach of those terms, and therefore tantamount to offering himself up for assassination while in the hands of his opponents.
From then on, your comments are just speculation based upon speculation, so let's just take stock. Sure he may have been used as a spy, he may have been one of Robert Cecil's men and he may by now have had Whitgift quite relaxed about him getting away with his former crimes scot-free (even though there isn't a scrap of evidence to support any of this).
However, what we are left with are the facts that there was a real person called John Matthew who was M.A. from Trinity and who had lived at Trinity for eight years with a Christopher Morley, who was also M.A. from there, but who had died in May 1596 just before Matthew's final departure from Cambridge. By far the most likely explanation for all of the records coming out of Valladolid is, therefore, that it was this John Matthew who arrived there on 30 May 1593, and who used the identity of his dead friend as an alias. Saying that you "don't accept" this just isn't enough. What you really have to do is to demonstrate why this conclusion is wrong in spite of those facts. And, to my regret, the fact that we would all really like your version to be true really doesn't cut it.
Peter Farey
Sorry. That's 1599, not 1593!
Peter: You have explained your theories about Deptford and Mathews. I do not agree with either. And BTW, how do you explain Le Doux in the light of that alleged “non-negotiable deal that Marlowe must do nothing whatsoever which might give the impression he was still alive.”?
According to my interpretation of the events in Deptford, plus the political and historical circumstances of May 1599, my logic dictates that Mathews was probably Marlowe; the facts such as we know them support this conjecture.
The man in Valladolid was lying about who he was; if he was Mathews, he had apparently made his colleagues believe that his real name was Christopher. Why? BTW, his surname is Marlor for Vaughan, Marlerus in the Entry book, Marlorus in the Annals, Marley in the Pardon Roll and Marlowe in the Gatehouse, so I don’t think we need make an issue of the spelling. BTW, again, 160 is the entry number in the Entry Records book; the numbers are on the margin, on the other side of the alias, and could be additions.
As I say, I have no problem with my own scenario, while you are trying to wriggle out of the difficulties in yours, by sending me condescending comments. You don’t know whether your Mathews was or not an agent, even a double agent (so telling a pack of lies), and you pile up irrelevant information, such as having found a Will by one John Mathews; well, if you must know, there are not one, but two Wills by two different John Mathews, both family men, who died within two years of each other in the early sixteen-twenties; so what? May it be simply that the name John Mathews was a relatively common one?
You do not explain Vaughan’s letter; you assume Mathews would never have heard of a notorious Cambridge ex-pupil called Christopher Marlowe, so he chose that name by a fluke. He arrived on 30th May also by a fluke; Vaughan thought his name was Christopher by another fluke, and, by yet another fluke, he appears in England precisely after the Queen’s death and in time to be included in the Pardon Rolls in February 1604, four days before Whitgift died but when he was already terminally ill. The final fluke is Mathews/Marlerus/Mallonus disappears from all Catholic Records in December 1604, just as the two first new plays by “Shaxberd” since 1599 appear at Court in November.
There are quite a few more coincidences, but I won’t go into them. I am extremely reluctant to believe in coincidences at the best of times, but more so when they come “in battalions”. My capacity for swallowing coincidences disappears completely when I have a perfectly logical explanation for their not being coincidences at all.
And, this, my dear Peter, is the end of this debate as far as I am concerned. I find your Mathews interpretation purely conjectural and I will be sorry to hear that it has persuaded others. It wasn’t easy for Marlowe to leave tracks in the Continent; it would be sad if one of his friends were responsible for destroying such few tracks as he may have managed to leave.
Am enjoying the hot repartee between Peter and Isabel. Should Marlovians draw up a list of facts that we can all agree on? By the way, does Vaughn identify his informant at Valladolid? This informant was able to provide Vaughn with detailed physical descriptions of the individuals identified as future enimies of the Elizabethan state. Who was this informant? Could it have been Marlowe under cover?
Isabel wrote: ...how do you explain Le Doux in the light of that alleged "non-negotiable deal that Marlowe must do nothing whatsoever which might give the impression he was still alive."?
Me: I see a different level of risk in Marlowe saying he was a French businessman called Le Doux, and Marlowe saying he was Christopher Marlowe. I am surprised that you don't.
Isabel: The man in Valladolid was lying about who he was; if he was Mathews, he had apparently made his colleagues believe that his real name was Christopher. Why?
Me: My guess would be that he had decided to go under the pseudonym Christopher Morley and, rightly assuming the high probability of there being informants in the college, he had used this pseudonym right from the start.
Isabel: BTW, his surname is Marlor for Vaughan, Marlerus in the Entry book, Marlorus in the Annals, Marley in the Pardon Roll and Marlowe in the Gatehouse, so I don’t think we need make an issue of the spelling.
Me: But that is precisely the point I was making. Vaughan wasn't sure that Marlor was exactly right, but certain that Christopher was.
Isabel: ...160 is the entry number in the Entry Records book; the numbers are on the margin, on the other side of the alias, and could be additions.
Me: Thank you, Isabel. However, my question really concerned the number appearing in your transcript of Vaughan's letter whereas I have never seen it in any other. Unless it was in Vaughan's original letter, any claim that he was aware of the entry number is unsustainable.
Isabel: As I say, I have no problem with my own scenario, while you are trying to wriggle out of the difficulties in yours, by sending me condescending comments.
Me: I'm sorry, Isabel. I'm not trying to wriggle out of anything, and I really don't mean to be condescending. I write this way because it's fun trying to tease out the truth about things like this, and as I have said to many of my opponents in the past, you really need to imagine a 'smiley' emoticon after almost everything I say. Gentle teasing of one's opponents is the norm where I come from.
Isabel: You don’t know whether your Mathews was or not an agent, even a double agent (so telling a pack of lies),
Me: Neither of us knows this. Not if we base our beliefs upon evidence.
(This is going to be too long to be accepted, so I'll continue in another 'comment'.)
Peter
(continued)
Isabel: You do not explain Vaughan’s letter;
Me: I really don't understand your point. What's to explain? He is giving the Privy Council information he has obtained which he thinks they need to know. I for one know nothing more about why he would be in a position to get this information, nor what his relationship with the named Council members was. Do you?
Isabel: ...you assume Mathews would never have heard of a notorious Cambridge ex-pupil called Christopher Marlowe, so he chose that name by a fluke.
Me: No, I say that he chose that name because it was that of someone with whom he had been closely connected for some eight years of his life. The 'fluke' was that there were two people called Christopher Morley who had M.A.s from Cambridge, although at different colleges, so it's not much of one.
Isabel: He arrived on 30th May also by a fluke;
Me: I think I dealt with that one in my essay. Did you have nothing to say about what I said?
Isabel: Vaughan thought his name was Christopher by another fluke,
Me: Vaughan thought his name was Christopher since that is what he had been told by his two informants, and if this was the name he was using at the time this is hardly surprising.
Isabel: ...and, by yet another fluke, he appears in England precisely after the Queen’s death and in time to be included in the Pardon Rolls in February 1604, four days before Whitgift died but when he was already terminally ill.
Me: You appear to be suggesting that Vaughan (who predicted when this Christopher Marlor would leave for England) knew that the Queen would have just died by then, and that Marlor then chose the time of his arrest to coincide with Whitgift's illness. I find that hard to accept.
Isabel: The final fluke is Mathews/Marlerus/Mallonus disappears from all Catholic Records in December 1604, just as the two first new plays by "Shaxberd" since 1599 appear at Court in November.
Me: As I said, I am quite prepared to accept the possibility of Matthew having been a double agent. As evidence for it, however, this is about as weak as evidence gets!
Peter
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