The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1)

“But Marlowe was murdered in 1593,” I replied slowly. “Most of the plays were written after that.”

Chris looked at me and lowered his voice.

“Sure. If he died in the bar fight that day.”

“What are you saying?”

“It’s possible his death was faked.”

“Why?”

Chris took a deep breath. This was a subject he knew something about.

“Remember that Elizabeth was a Protestant queen. Anything like atheism or papism would deny the authority of the Protestant Church and the queen as the head.”

“Treason,” I murmured. “A capital offense.”

“Exactly. In April 1593 the Privy Council arrested one Thomas Kyd in connection with some antigovernment pamphleteering. When his rooms were searched they revealed some atheistic writings.”

“So?”

“Kyd fingered Marlowe. Said Marlowe had written them two years ago when they were rooming together. Marlowe was arrested and questioned on May 18, 1593; he was freed on bail so presumably there wasn’t enough evidence to commit him for trial.”

“What about his friendship with Walsingham?” I asked.

“I was coming to that. Walsingham had an influential position within the secret service; they had known each other for a number of years. With more evidence arriving daily against Marlowe, his arrest seemed inevitable. But on the morning of May 30, Marlowe is killed in a bar brawl, apparently over an unpaid bill.”

“Very convenient.”

“Very. It’s my belief that Walsingham faked his friend’s death. The three men in the tavern were all in his pay. He bribed the coroner and Marlowe set up Shakespeare as the front man. Will, an impoverished actor who knew Marlowe from his days at the Shoreditch Theater, probably leaped at the chance to make some money; his career seems to have taken off as Marlowe’s ended.”

“It’s an interesting theory. But wasn’t Venus and Adonis published a couple of months before Marlowe’s death? Earlier even than Kyd’s arrest?”

Chris coughed.

“Good point. All I can say is that the plot must have been hatched somewhat ahead of time, or that records have been muddled.”

He paused for a moment, looked about and lowered his voice further.

“Don’t tell the other Marlovians, but there is something else that points away from a faked death.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Marlowe was killed within the jurisdiction of the queen’s coroner. There were sixteen jurors to view the supposedly switched body, and it is unlikely that the coroner could have been bribed. If I had been Walsingham I would have had Marlowe’s death faked in the boonies where coroners were more easily bought. He could have gone farther and had the body disfigured in some way to make identification impossible.”

“What are you saying?”

“That an equally probable theory is that Walsingham himself had Marlowe killed to stop him talking. Men say anything when tortured, and it’s likely that Marlowe had all kinds of dirt on Walsingham.”

“What then?” I asked. “How would you account for the lack of any firm evidence regarding Shakespeare’s life, his curious double existence, the fact that no one seemed to know about his literary work in Stratford?”

Chris shrugged.

“I don’t know, Thursday. Without Marlowe there is no one else in Elizabethan London even able to write the plays.”

“Any theories?”

“None at all. But the Elizabethans were a funny bunch. Court intrigue, the secret service . . .”