Marlowe Among the Churchwardens

I

IF one looks for murderers, one may find churchwardens; and if for churchwardens, one may discover extortioners. At least I’m sure it may be so in England. But before I begin my narrative I must give you fair warning. If you are expecting further thrills and penny shockers, — more deadly brawls, daggers, and dying Marlowes, — you may as well try something else. Such exorbitant experiences come but once in a lifetime, and I am neither a Lazarus nor a cat.

If it strikes you as peculiarly fitting when I tell you that Marlowe, who was known to the Puritans as an impious atheist and a profane wretch, received his quietus at the hand of a churchwarden, I can restore life’s illogical balance by producing another churchwarden who was this same poet’s friend in need. But first I must tell you all I have learned of the man who ‘cut the branch that might have grown full straight.’

From the moment that I found Ingram Frizer striking the twelvepenny dagger into the abode of the poet’s vaulting imagination, he was of course a marked man. To run over the facts: an innocent entry in the Close Rolls of the Chancery had furnished the clue which led me to the coroner’s grim tale, and to the pardon. The homicide was forgiven by the Queen, and Frizer was not depended. But that was not the end for me. I felt that I must know more of this dark figure, — his life, his character, his relation to Marlowe, — and I set myself to hunt him through the records.

As a beginning, I took up the Elizabethan index nominum to one of the more manageable series, the Exchequer of Pleas. This is the interesting court whose jurisdiction was originally confined to cases arising directly out of the payment of the royal revenue. Now the Exchequer judges felt this to be a narrow province, and to augment their power and fees they did not hesitate to invent the amusing writ of quominus, based on the assumption that because of what A did to B, B was the less able to pay his taxes to the Crown — whereupon almost anything that A did to the physical or financial damage of B became a potential revenue case, and could be tried in the Exchequer. Thus the learned and acquisitive Barons of the Exchequer came to hear many a profitable litigation between happy, undeserving A and wretched, meritorious B.

During my search in this court, Frizer bobbed up twice, appearing in both cases as plaintiff. In the first he sued a business associate for debt, and in the second he brought an action for recovery against a certain Edmund Ballard, who, he alleged, had forcibly dispossessed him of a house in Southwark. Although Frizer was evidently an active business man, and the records show that he won both suits, receiving five pounds damages in the second, these passages at law told me little of his character. What manner of man was he, after all? I looked back at the story of the killing. Something may reasonably be surmised from the company a man keeps. Reside Marlowe, there were two other men with Ingram Frizer at that fatal all-day party at the Deptford tavern. The coroner gave their names as Robert Poley and Nicholas Skeres. What sort of men were these? I learned by persistent inquiry among the state papers and historical manuscripts that Poley was a government spy in the pay of Mr. Secretary Walsingham; that Nicholas Skeres was a jailbird, and was found included in a list of notorious ‘cutpurses and masterless men’ hanging about the streets of London. Spies and jailbirds as commensals! This was bringing us somewhat nearer to a notion of Frizer’s character. Then I cast my line into that deep sea known as the Chancery Proceedings in Equity, where hooks are names and fish are documents. Warned, after a decent interval, by a nibble, I drew in, and found to my delight that beginner’s luck had held. Here was a suit in which our Frizer is painted in blackish enough colors. I was not a little pleased to have a new picture which supported my first impression.

In this Chancery case our man is accused — and the jailbird Skeres is named as his accomplice — of swindling. He and Skeres, we are told, gained the confidence of an inexperienced young country gentleman, Drew Woodleff, and by a series of clever tricks bilked him of his money. The way of it was as follows: Woodleff, needing ready money, applied to Skeres, who took him to Frizer as a man of more means. On hearing his wants, Frizer promised to make him a loan of sixty pounds. But first he exacted an I O U for that amount. When it came to the day for the actual lending of the money, Frizer pretended that he had none, but offered Woodleff instead ‘a commoditie . . . for which he mighte have threescore pounds (which was a certayne nomber of gunnes or greate Iron peeces).’ Poor Woodleff, desperate for his money, was forced to accept the bargain, and entreated Frizer to sell the said guns for him. Now mark the slippery dealing. Frizer departed as though to sell the guns, and returned with but thirty pounds, ‘ protestinge that that was all that he could at that tyme gett for them; whereas,’ adds Woodleff’s complaint, with pathetic indignation, ‘in truthe the said peeces or gunnes were his owne and the XXXli he brought his owne and never offered them to be soulde at all but lett them remayne uppon Tower Hill.’ Frizer, having actually lent but thirty pounds, now proceeded to demand payment on the I O U of sixty pounds. Woodleff was placed in the position of Peter in Lewis Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno, and might well exclaim: —

His circumstantial complaints bear the marks of sincerity; but unfortunately for him his suit was disallowed because of a technical outlawry, and Frizer, the coney-catcher, got off.

As we said, Frizer tried more than one trick on the gullible Woodleff, and another of the foolish young gentleman’s allegations was that Frizer had induced him to sign a bond of two hundred pounds ‘unto a gentleman of good worship, who was the said Frizer his then Master.’ Frizer’s master! This was a direct clue. I must find out who this master was; and I went back carefully over the case. The date of the suit was 1598; the swindling in connection with this last bond had been done, according to Woodleff, ‘about five years now last past,’ which would make it about 1593. To discover some record of the bond aforesaid, then, was my next problem. My luck held, for among the Lord Chamberlain’s records there proved to be a large collection of entry books of bonds or recognizances; and after a half-day’s search I turned up the following: —

Thomas Walsingham! I had not dared to hope for this name. Thomas Walsingham was Frizer’s master — the Kentish gentleman who has long been known as the protector and friend of Marlowe! And here it was proved that Frizer, at the time of killing Christopher Marlowe, was a fellow dependent of the wealthy squire. I could see them spending days together in the Walsingham mansion at Chislehurst. They were no chance acquaintances, those two bodies locked in a death grapple in that tavern room.

An extraordinary figure of a man this Frizer must have been. Dealer in houses; Marlowe’s associate as gentleman servant; swindler, hand in glove with Skeres, the jailbird — the unlovely outlines of the picture were rapidly filling in. But I wanted more; and, searching again in the Close Rolls, I ran upon a deed which told me that Frizer, about 1600, had removed from London to Eltham, some miles below Deptford, in Kent. Then, by rummaging among the Kentish subsidy or tax rolls, I found him as a small landholder there, and in office as one of the deputy tax assessors of the place. From homicide and swindling it seems he had settled down — or is it up? — to tax assessing! Following this last new hint, Miss DeKalb, another eager Marlowe student, journeyed last summer down to Eltham and, on searching the parish books there, found, mirabile dictu, — or, as Aunt Sarah used to say, ‘My rabbly dictoos!’ — that our versatile Frizer had turned churchwarden. Marlowe’s murderer a churchwarden!

But after all, why should n’t a swindler be a churchwarden, or vice versa? I have heard stranger truth than that. Yet what an Elizabethan description: dealer in houses, gentleman servant, swindler, homicide, tax assessor, and churchwarden. He may even have been a churchwarden of a London parish when he stabbed Marlowe! Is n’t it a pity that the Elizabethans had not learned the modern art of the pregnant scare head? It would have made a deliciously yellow morsel. Fancy the Autolycuses, on that June day after the Deptford crime, hawking a broadside to the haggard citizens in plague-ridden London, and down at Kew*, whither the Court has fled, to the silken Osricks, who, with a precautionary sniff, pick it up and read: CHURCHWARDEN KILLS ATHEIST!

So much for Frizer. For all his warding of the Eltham church, in all probability he is n’t freezing in the next world.

Even in Elizabeth’s time, however, all churchwardens did n’t devote their leisure to swindling innocents and stabbing geniuses. There was another of these same dignitaries in Marlowe’s immediate circle who treated the poet in a more friendly fashion. And my search for him began in a manner so stupidly baffling that — but I shall take you with me from the beginning.

II

Mystery is not hard to find. Indeed, one cannot peruse the few known facts of the young poet’s life without coming upon more than one subject for conjecture. In a rapid review of the biographical data on Marlowe, the most egregiously tantalizing bit to me was what was written on a small piece of wrinkled parchment, originally found among the records of the Court of Middlesex Sessions and now preserved at Westminster Guildhall. Sir Sidney Lee was the first, some years since, to show its connection with Christopher Marlowe. The legal Latin of the original may be Englished as follows: —

Middlesex. Be it remembered that, the first day of October in the year of the reign of our lady Elizabeth, Queen, etc., the thirty-first, Richard Kytchine of Clifford’s Inne, gentleman, and Humfrey Rowland of East Smithfeilde in the county aforesaid, horner, came before me, William Fletewoode, Sergeant at Law and Recorder of the City of London, one of the Justices of our lady the Queen appointed in the county aforesaid, etc., and became sureties for Christopher Marley of London, gentleman: to wit, each of the sureties aforesaid under penalty of twenty pounds, and he, the said Christopher Marley, undertook for himself, under penalty of forty pounds of his and their and either of their goods, chattels, lands and tenements, to be levied to the use and behoof of our said lady the Queen on condition that if he the said Christopher shall personally appear at the next Sessions of Newgate to answer everything that may be alleged against him on the part of the Queen, and shall not depart without the permission of the Court, That then, etc.

We gather from this that Marlowe, in 1589, two years after receiving his Master’s degree from Cambridge, was being held in bail equivalent to about $3500 to appear and answer charges at Newgate Sessions. What crime was he charged with? Felony, evidently, since the document is endorsed G. D. (gaol delivery). Rut also felony which did not amount to a capital offense, since we see that he was admitted to bail. It was tantalizing to find that there seemed to be no possibility of further light on the case. A search among the remaining records of the Middlesex Sessions afforded nothing.

One avenue of approach, however, I could attempt — the names of the two friends of Marlowe who stood surety for him. If I could learn nothing more about the crime, I could at least investigate these two men. The first, ‘Richard Kytchine, gentleman,’ was obviously either an attorney or a student of the law, as his address is here given as Clifford’s Inn, one of the ancient London law societies or Inns of Chancery. But was this fact of much help? There are no early records of Clifford’s Inn extant. Yet of course, if Richard Kytchine was an attorney, the most probable place to find him would be in the records of court proceedings. Accordingly, I took up the Coram Rege rolls of the King’s Bench, and began a search from the year 1580. My work was not in vain, for among the entries for Hilary Term (January 24 to February 12), 1586, I found Richard Kitching acting as attorney for a Thomas Meeres of Kent. This is undoubtedly Richard Kytchine of Clifford’s Inn, who three years afterward stood surety, as we know, for Christopher Marlowe the dramatist. Not yet satisfied, I took up the Lay Subsidy or tax rolls for the close of Elizabeth’s reign, and searched the various wards of London. No trace of this name turned up in the vicinity of Clifford’s Inn; but I reflected that Clifford’s Inn was not likely to be the man’s permanent address, and there was a Richard Kytchyn, a man of property in the parish of St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield. In 1588 he was assessed five shillings on his land. If this Richard Kytchyn is identical with Marlowe’s legal friend, — and I think he is, — then Professor Tucker Brooke has made a further and most interesting discovery about him in the criminal records of the Court of the King’s Bench, which he has kindly allowed me to publish here. It is the presentment of a London grand jury, April 11, 1594, of Richard Kychen of London, gentleman for felonious assault. On April 2 preceding, in the parish of St. Bartholomew the Great, Kychen ‘leapt upon [insultavit] a certain John Fynch of London, gentleman (then and there walking and being in the peace of God and of the Queen) . . . and with a dagger of iron and steel which he had and held in his right hand, he struck, wounded, and maltreated [verberavit, vulneravit, et maletractavit] the said John Fynch so that his life was despaired of, and inflicted further enormities on him, to his great harm and damage, and to the worst and most utterly depraved example of all other malefactors [et in omnium aliorum malefactorum pessimum et perviciosissimum exemplum].’

This certainly sounds very much like the disastrous dagger attack which Marlowe had made a year previously on Ingram Frizer, except that Kitchen seems to have had the upper hand of his enemy. And although in Kitchen’s case we have no inkling of the cause of the quarrel, it is not impossible that Marlowe’s legal friend resembled the fiery poet in temper. Here again we are driven by the lack of circumstantial facts to some form of conjecture, which, however, I shall leave to you.

Much as we have learned about Kitchen, there must be more in the records. Meanwhile let us turn to the other bondsman, Humphrey Rowland. In the course of a search through the King’s Bench Controlment Rolls, I ran upon the following, under date 1586: —

Middlesexia Venire facias octabis Hillarii Humfridum Rowland de parochia de Estsmythfefelde in comitatu Middlesexie yomanresponsurum Regine de quibusdam transgressionibus et extorcionibus unde indictatus est Per Bagam supradictam

This is as much as to say that Humphrey Rowland, of East Smithfield, yeoman, is summoned to answer certain ‘transgressions and extortions’ for which he is indicted ‘ by the Baga aforesaid.’ In passing we should explain that this Baga is the famous and romantically named Baga de Secretis or ‘Bag of Secrets,’ the secrets being the criminal proceedings in the King’s Bench. In ancient times it was kept in a closet to which three men only had a key: the Lord Chief Justice, the Attorney-General, and the Master of the Crown Office. Later, the term was specialized to cover only the proceedings in state and treason trials; and if, therefore, you wish to witness for yourself the trial and conviction of Anne Boleyn or of Guido Fawkes, this is what will happen. You will write certain letters and numbers on a slip; in due course an attendant will bring forth from the bowels of the building and put into your hand a small, longshaped pouch of soft, white leather, drawn together by thongs at the throat; and on opening it you will take out a roll of fair parchment — as white as treason or judicial murder is black — and read the terrible story as the ancient clerk wrote it down. But neither the Baga de Secretis nor yet its supplement, the Ancient Indictments, could tell me what manner of ‘transgressions and extortions’ Humphrey was charged with. They, like Marlowe’s offense, remain a secret still.

III

Having found both of Marlowe’s bondsmen, Rowland and Kitchen, in the court records, I contemplated the possibility of hunting down, through them, Marlowe’s London address; for it was more than possible that one of them was his neighbor. Of the two I inclined to favor Rowland, as Kitchen was a lawyer and interested in Marlowe perhaps only in a professional way, whereas ‘Humphrey Rowland, horner, of East Smithfield’ sounded to me like a prosperous neighbor and friend. Re that as it might, I determined to concentrate my attentions on Humphrey.

The first avenue I approached was the subsidies, or tax rolls, where I had found Richard Kitchen. Picture my excitement when, on opening a Middlesex roll dated April 1, 1586, I found under East Smithfield the entry:—

which means that James Morlowc, a man of large property in East Smithfield, had paid a tax of fifty shillings on goods assessed at thirty pounds. Could this Morlowe be a relative of Christopher Marlowe? It was not impossible. I hastened to look further; and in a roll dated October 31, 1598, found ‘James Morley’ —obviously identical with James Morlowe; witness the spelling of Christopher Marlowe’s name as ‘ Morley ’ in the pardon — and Thomas Morley, each assessed four pounds on a holding of land in East Smithfield valued at twenty pounds. There also, in the same list, was ‘Humphre Rowlande,’ taxed eight shillings on goods valued at three pounds. This shows that Humphrey Rowland was by no means poor; but James Morley or Morlowe was unquestionably wealthy.

East Smithfield was beginning to have a tremendous interest for me; and when I found further, among the Sheriff’s Accounts of Seizures for Elizabeth’s reign, a memorandum that a piece of land in the possession of James Morley, ‘in pochia sci Barthi, Smithfield,’ was forfeit to the Crown, I remembered the scene of Kitchen’s dagger attack on Finch, and rashly concluded that therefore the parish of St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, was Marlowe’s, Rowland’s, and Kitchen’s parish.

However tempting, this was a snap judgment; and in making it I went astray and wandered wide of the truth for several days. The reason for the error was simple. I had never heard of more than one Smithfield, and that, as I knew, was near the Charterhouse, and contained part of the parish of St. Bartholomew. As we all know, Smithfield was the scene of the famous Bartholomew Fair. Moreover, to-day, if you ask ten Londoners on Ludgate Hill where East Smithfield is, nine will direct you up Old Bailey toward St. Bartholomew’s. But there is a snare. Smithfield and East Smithfield are not one and the same.

Just before departing, however, in high spirits from the Record Office to search the parish books of St. Bartholomew’s, I fortunately took another precautionary look at the entry in the sheriff’s accounts. Turning back, I noticed this time that the Morley entry which had caught my eye had been copied from the accounts of the previous year. Surprised at this, I turned back a few pages farther, and found that the entry of James Morley’s piece of land had stood in the accounts for a number of years; but that, instead of ‘in pochia sci Barthi, Smithfield,’ the description of it in the earlier years read ‘ in pochia sci Bothi, East Smithfield.’ ‘Bothi,’ of course, is the abbreviation, not of Bartholomew, but of Botolph! Someone had blundered. I turned forward again cautiously until I found the exact year in which the Exchequer clerk, unfamiliar with East Smithfield, but understanding very well the Smithfield of the Fair, had made the unwarranted substitution.

Thus sadly brought back to reason. I easily learned that the Smithfield that most of us know was originally called West Smithfield; and that since the Middle Ages there has been an East Smithfield just east of the Tower of London, on the Thames, where now lies St. Katherine’s Dock. To clinch the matter, I found that East Smithfield, or a part of it, was included in the parish of St. Botolph’s outside Aldgate. Consequently, though Kitchen of St. Bartholomew’s was now ruled out as a neighbor of the Morleys and the Rowlands, I had found at length where to look for the latter.

I hastened to find out whether the parish books of St. Botolph’s were preserved in the church there as far back as 1580. On being informed that they were, I boarded a bus for Aldgate, already romantic as Geoffrey Chaucer’s old home, hoping at the journey’s end to find Marlowe’s friend, Rowland the horner, waiting for me in the pages of the parish books.

And there he was! Yes, he was there in force. No more disappointments. As I sat in the vestry, after obtaining the vicar’s kind permission, turning over the leaves of the old registers, the rumble of Houndsditch and the roar of Aldgate High Street grew dim to my ears, and every sense was absorbed in following the vicissitudes of the ancient Rowland. From among the thousands of entries of christenings, marriages, and burials emerged these: —

Death of a servant of his, 1577. On November 3, ‘James Paadge Seruaunt vnto Humphrey Rollaund hornnebreaker was Buryed.’

And of a daughter: ‘Anne Rollaund Dawghter vnto Humphrey Rollaund was Buryed the 7 Days off December.’

1582. September 30. Rowland buried two children on this day: ‘Ellen Rollaund, a child, plagg [plague]’; ‘Symon Rollaund, a child, plagg.’

1583. June 29, his servant Andrew Vandepeare was buried: ‘Yeres 16; consumption.’

1585. February 27, ‘Mary Rollaund wif vnto Humphrey Rollaund hornbreaker Was Buryed.’

Humphrey did not mourn Mary long, for nine weeks later ho married again: ‘Humphrey Rollaund and Eve Ashe were Maryed the 4 daie of Maye.’ And two weeks afterward he lost his sister. May 17: ‘Amey Skriwatter wedow suster to Humphrey Rollaund was Buryed. . . . Yeres 38. Consumption.’

1589. This was the year in which he became surety for Christopher Marlowe. A son, Samwell Rollaund, was baptized on July 20. On April 6, 1591, he was buried. ‘1. yere 3 quarters. pyning.’ Poor little child! One wonders what polysyllabled name a modern physician would give to this ‘pyning.’

1591. Another son, Godfrey Rollaund, was baptized on July 22. He was buried on August 23, 1593. ‘Yeres 2. plagg.’ 1593 was a great plague year. Awsten Awstens, another of Rowland’s servants, was buried six days after little Godfrey.

1593! Our story has come full circle; for it was in the summer of 1593, we remember, that Marlowe died by Frizer’s hand at Deptford. It is more than likely that they had gone down to Deptford to be out of the plaguestricken city. And when I realized that the same summer witnessed the swindling of Woodleff through the clever substitution by Frizer of certain ‘guns or great iron pieces’ on Tower Hill for the promised cash in hand, I was strangely moved by two entries in the books of St. Botolph’s: —

1593. John. yeres 30. plagg. John, a laboring man who dyed on the hill amongst the gonnes in the hye waye was Buryed the 22 daye of August.

1593. Yeres 14. plagg. A younge maiden who dyed amonge the gonnes at the tower hill was Buryed the 8. dayeoff September.

Could it have been to one of Frizer’s cold-hearted cannon that the young maiden turned her face as she died?

IV

But to come back to Humphrey Rowland, or Rollaund, as he is written here. From these short and simple annals he stands out as a living man, more real even than Richard Kitchen with his stabbing exploit. For, on looking further among the parish books, I found Rowland’s name included in the list of churchwardens, where it held honorable position for a matter of six years or more. Rowland’s occupation, however, still remains a mystery. In some entries he is called a ‘horner’ and in others a ‘horn-breaker.’ The first description offers no difficulty. A horner is one who prepares horn for human use in buttons, hornbooks, and the like. Little Jack Horner’s progenitor was one such. But is this equivalent to ‘horn-breaking’? I do not know. Horn-breaking — what is it? Rehabilitation of cuckolds? Manual dehorning of cattle? If this latter be the case, what a Samson our Rowland must have been! A Tamburlaine of tradesmen.

‘ Fragmentary, but exciting ’ describes this kind of research. Christopher Harley, or Marlowe, then, is indicted for felony, and is admitted to bail. What was his offense? Was he convicted? Nobody knows. One of his two bondsmen, Richard Kitchen, proves to be an attorney, and a man of some property in St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield. Kitchen is later indicted for knifing his neighbor Finch, who was walking in the peace of God. Why did Kitchen knife Finch? The jury does n’t tell. What became of Kitchen, or of Finch, of whose life it was despaired? No answer.

Humphrey Rowland, the other bondsman, is a substantial horn-breaker and churchwarden of St. Botolph’s Extra Aldgate. What was his anterior connection with the turbulent dramatist? We cannot be sure. Conjecture: they became acquainted through a wealthy coparishioner of Rowland’s named James Morley or Morlowe, perhaps a distant kinsman of Christopher Marlowe.

There are here, certainly, plenty of mysteries yet to be solved, and everyone may make conjectures to please himself. The important thing is the presence of all this newly discovered material for the lives of Marlowe and his associates, from which to ‘take off,’not the least striking of which is the fact that the ‘atheist’ Marlowe was intimate with two churchwardens. One bailed him out; the other killed him.