Marlovian Theory - Marlowe's Death

Marlowe's Death

As far as is generally accepted by mainstream scholars, Christopher Marlowe died on 30 May 1593 as the result of a knife wound above the right eye inflicted upon him by Ingram Frizer, an acquaintance with whom he had been dining. Together with two other men, Robert Poley and Nicholas Skeres, they had spent that day together at the Deptford home of Eleanor Bull, a respectable widow who apparently offered, for payment, room and refreshment for such private meetings.

As new information has become available over the years, however, the Marlovian argument about Marlowe's death has itself changed from (1) thinking that because, in their view, he wrote Shakespeare his death must have been faked; to (2) challenging the details of the inquest in an attempt to show that it must have been; to (3) claiming that the circumstances surrounding it suggest that the faking is the most likely scenario, whether he went on to write Shakespeare or not.