The Shakespeare Conspiracies
by Hoyt Hilsman
The Shakespearean authorship controversy has spawned its own genre of books, films and plays, most recently the movie Anonymous, which dramatizes the theory that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the author of the Shakespearean canon. I haven’t yet seen the movie, and the “Oxfordian” theory is just as weak as any of the other authorship theories However, I am partial to the Christopher Marlowe authorship school, not because of any factual basis, but because I think it makes the best story. If you’re going for fictional intrigue, I say, choose the best fiction.
Here are some of the juicy details. Christopher Marlowe was born in Canterbury in 1564 to parents of modest circumstances, just two months before William Shakespeare’s birth at Stratford-upon-Avon. Marlowe was a precocious young man, and attended Cambridge University on a scholarship, although the university nearly withheld his degree when it was rumored that he had converted to Roman Catholicism. Only after the Privy Council intervened, citing his “good service” to Queen Elizabeth, was he granted the degree. What was his “good service?” More about that in a bit.
Almost immediately upon graduation, Marlowe began having his plays produced in London, to great success. Tamburlaine, about the conqueror Timur, was one of the first English plays written in blank verse. His historical plays, The Jew of Malta, Edward II and The Massacre of Paris followed in quick order. His final play The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, is perhaps his greatest work.
To say that Christopher Marlowe was outspoken would be a gross understatement. He made no secret of his beliefs and his proclivities. He openly proclaimed himself an atheist and is quoted as saying “that Christ was a bastard and his mother dishonest.” He was defiantly homosexual, declaring that “all they that love not tobacco and boys are fools.” A drinker and brawler, heretic and homosexual, Marlowe was the rock star of Renaissance dramatists, admired above all others by his contemporaries by the time he was twenty-five.
But there was an even more intriguing aspect to Marlowe’s life – espionage. Apparently Marlowe was recruited by Sir Francis Walsingham, the principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth and her notorious “spymaster.” As a spy for the Protestant Queen, Marlowe reportedly infiltrated the entourage of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots and other center s of Catholic resistance. However, in 1593, when the Privy Council learned of a threat to Protestant refugees, the dramatist Thomas Kyd was arrested and made several accusations against Marlowe. The Privy Council, who did not know that Marlowe was acting as a double agent for Walsingham, issued an order for Marlowe to appear to answer the charges. Before he could appear, Marlowe was killed, allegedly stabbed in the eye in a barroom brawl, but more likely on orders from Walsingham, who wanted him silenced. The alleged killers were later found to be in the employ of Walsingham.
How then, if Marlowe died in 1593, could he have been the real Shakespeare, who continued to write for more than fifteen years? Here’s where the fictional narrative gets really interesting, because it relies on speculation and improbable what-ifs – all grist for any good conspiracy tale. Marlowe’s body was reportedly removed from the scene and buried in an unmarked grave in Deptford. In fact, no one actually saw the body or verified the identity of Marlowe. The theory is that Marlowe’s death was faked and he escaped to exile in Italy with the help of Sir Francis’s cousin, Thomas, who was also Marlowe’s lover.
After a brief stint in the Italian sunshine attending commedia dell’arte plays, the story goes, Marlowe was again writing, this time under the pseudonym of William Shakespeare, an obscure actor who had either died or emigrated to America. In 1594, Marlowe had his first production as Shakespeare. The play was Taming of the Shrew, a comedy greatly influenced by the Italian style of commedia dell’arte and the first of his series of Italianate comedies.
The Marlowe authorship school argues that Marlowe then returned to England in a sort of Renaissance witness protection program, in which he assumed the identity of Shakespeare, including a revived marriage of convenience with Anne Hathaway, who had not seen the real Shakespeare for more than a decade. Marlowe was thus able to abandon his past as a renowned atheist, homosexual and spy, and assume the identity of Shakespeare, the successful and conservative dramatist, for the remainder of his life.
As long as some aspects of Shakespeare’s life remain shrouded in mystery, there will be lots of conspiracy theories about his true identity. Which is why, if conspire you must, I’d say go for the tale that Shakespeare could have written – the tale of lust, intrigue, palace-plotting, and fake identities – even if, as many of Shakespeare’s plays, it departs from history to make for terrific drama.
Hoyt Hilsman is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, critic and former candidate for Congress. His political thriller, 19 Angels, was recently published and is in development as a feature film.
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Comments (15)
Garner Simmons
October 27th, 2011 at 5:48 AM
While I agree that Christopher Marlowe is among the most intriguing figures of Elizabethan England, and as much as I would personally love to believe the fantastic tale you've just woven were true, it unfortunately falls apart when confronted with the facts. Read historian Charles Nicholl's The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe, (Harcourt-Brace, 1992) exhaustively researched with more than 50 pages of footnotes to support his case.
Among the many details selectively ignored by those who favor Marlowe as Shakespeare is the fact that Marlowe's death occurred within the verge — a 12 mile radius of the Queen's person (at the time Elizabeth was staying at Greenwich Palace less than a mile away). By law, any death within the verge demanded a Coroner's inquest (understandable given the many Catholic plots against the Crown). Thus William Danby, Coroner to the Royal Household, traveled to Deptford on Friday the 1st of June, 1593 where he assembled 16 jurors. The inquest took place at the site of the crime with Marlowe's body in full view (he was fatally stabbed above the right eye to a depth of 2 inches). Even the names and occupations of the jurors are a matter of record. The Coroner's ruling: Marlowe was stabbed with his own dagger, killed by Ingram Frizer "in defense and saving of his own life." As Mark Twain, another Shakespeare doubter, once remarked: "It's no wonder truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense."
Hoyt Hilsman
October 27th, 2011 at 5:42 PM
Hi Garner –
Thanks indeed for your comment. Of course, I am not asserting the truth of any of these authorship theories, only how great their fictional punch. If I were a modern-day conspiracy theorist (which I am not), I would suggest that the Coroner may have been in on the plot since Walsingham's reach was extensive. The authorship controversy will certainly never be a settled one, at least to those of conspiratorial disposition.
All best,
Hoyt
Eric
October 27th, 2011 at 6:31 PM
an unknown someone named 'Ben Jonson' contributed this to the first folio – wonder how he got it all so wrong;
….
I, therefore will begin. Soule of the Age !
The applause ! delight ! the wonder of our Stage !
My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lye
A little further, to make thee a roome :
Thou art a Moniment, without a tombe,
And art alive still, while thy Booke doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mixe thee so, my braine excuses ;
I meane with great, but disproportion'd Muses :
For, if I thought my judgement were of yeeres,
I should commit thee surely with thy peeres,
And tell, how farre thou dist our Lily out-shine,
Or sporting Kid or Marlowes mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latine, and lesse Greeke,
From thence to honour thee, I would not seeke
For names; but call forth thund'ring Æschilus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
….
Charles Spuregon
October 27th, 2011 at 7:07 PM
Hoyt, many thanks for staying on top of the fiction of conspiracies. I saw a trailer of the film, and I am going to see it soon, just for the kicks. After seeing the trailer, however, I was almost too angry to drive, but I can always use a good fantasy.
Want the absolute best explanation and analysis of 'Who wrote Shakespeare?' read James Shapiro's 'Contested Will', of dig into Jonathan Bate's 'The Genius of Shakespeare', or for a short and funny look at the comedy of errors, of sorts, read Bill Byrson's last chapter in his 'Shakespeare'.
I just saw a television spot on Republican would-be candidates and their view about global warming. The anti-science attitudes and statements are almost as astonishing as those of Oxfordians or the Marlovians, etc. Thanks for your article, and meanwhile, back to teaching my Shakespeare class. Cheers! Chuck Spurgeon
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Lance Davis
October 27th, 2011 at 11:05 PM
Thanks, Hoyt. I've just started to receive a couple of links to Shakespeare blogs and they're all abuzz. How great that there's a film and we're even discussing it, without a Kardashian in sight. I must say that I don't think Marlowe was capable. Bob Egan had a Marlowe Reading series years ago in Seattle. It took me three days to get the pounding of "the mighty line" out of my head.
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Eric
October 28th, 2011 at 5:51 PM
The deeply informated New York Times magazine Riff on the subject is one of the most inventively nasty things written about anything in memory http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/wouldn…
and it is dead on about the beyond-Elizabethan-trivia bottom line:
The Shakespeare controversy, which emerged in the 19th century (at that time, theorists proposed that Francis Bacon was Shakespeare), was one of the origins of the willful ignorance and insidious false balance that is now rotting away our capacity to have meaningful discussions. The wider public, which has no reason to be familiar with questions of either Renaissance chronology or climate science, assumes that if there are arguments, there must be reasons for those arguments. Along with a right-wing antielitism, an unthinking left-wing open-mindedness and relativism have also given lunatic ideas soil to grow in. Our politeness has actually led us to believe that everybody deserves a say.
The problem is that not everybody does deserve a say. Just because an opinion exists does not mean that the opinion is worthy of respect. Some people deserve to be marginalized and excluded. There are many questions in this world over which rational people can have sensible confrontations: whether lower taxes stimulate or stagnate growth; whether abortion is immoral; whether the ’60s were an achievement or a disaster; whether the universe is motivated by a force for benevolence; whether the Fonz jumping on water skis over a shark was cool or lame. Whether Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare is not one of these questions.
Unfortunately, the nonquestion of Shakespeare’s identity is now being asked on billboards all over the world. It will raise debate where none should be. It will sow confusion where there is none. Somebody here is a fraud, but it isn’t Shakespeare.
David More
October 29th, 2011 at 11:05 AM
Hoyt, What is your source for the bits about Marlowe marrying Ann Hathaway, and being Thomas Walsingham's lover?
dgt
February 14th, 2012 at 1:38 AM
Its the same with Ancient History and Egypt- the historians can never accept they have been wrong all their lives so they cling to the theory that Kafka built the great pyramid because graffiti was found inside it bearing his name. While the alternative theories are marginalised and ridiculed- and even suggested as you do that the very thought should be banished from mankind's consciousness as you have decreed.
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