3. Christopher Marlowe may have been a spy for Queen Elizabeth
Christopher Marlowe died in a barroom brawl at the age of only 29, but the shortness of his life did not deprive it of considerable adventure. He wrote only four plays in his career, yet over 400 years later all four are still staged. Marlowe earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at Cambridge, and when the school balked at awarding it – is suspected he had converted to Catholicism – the Queen’s Privy Council intervened. The school was informed that Marlowe’s recent long absence from the college had not been for religious reasons, but that Marlowe had been engaged, “on matters touching the benefit of his country”.
Several mysteries surround Marlowe’s short life. Specific links to evidence he was a spy are few. Circumstantial evidence abounds; he was a friend of the spy and raconteur Sir Walter Raleigh, and of Thomas Walsingham, whose cousin Francis was Elizabeth I’s spymaster. Marlowe was arrested and charged with passing counterfeit coins in the Low Countries. He was returned to England to be tried for the crime but no trial was ever held. Some historians believe the counterfeit coins were part of an espionage mission assigned to the young man, who always had plenty of money despite little visible means of support. And that barroom brawl? Recently historians have argued Marlowe was actually killed in a safe house run by Thomas Walsingham by agents from a foreign government.