by Ann Swinfen
It became clear that Marlowe was fascinated by the illicit love between Edward and his male favourites, giving them sensuous and luxuriant lines to speak. Later I read in the script what had struck me as I listened to the words spoken at the Blue Boar:
I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits,
Musicians, that with touching of a string
May draw the pliant king which way I please:
Music and poetry is his delight;
Therefore I'll have Italian masks by night,
Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows;
And in the day, when he shall walk abroad,
Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad;
My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns,
Shall with their goat-feet dance the antic hay;
Sometime a lovely boy in Dian's shape,
With hair that gilds the water as it glides
Crownets of pearl about his naked arms,
And in his sportful hands an olive-tree,
To hide those parts which men delight to see,
Shall bathe him in a spring; and there, hard by,
One like Actæon, peeping through the grove,
Shall by the angry goddess be transform'd,
And running in the likeness of an hart,
By yelping hounds pull'd down, shall seem to die:
Such things as these best please his majesty.
There was no doubt that Marlowe was a gifted poet, although in passages like this his words were almost too lush, like a surfeit of rich food, so that after a time, one’s gorge rose. The suggestions of illicit lust were all too apparent. I remembered a conversation I had once had with Simon, when I had mentioned the rumour that Marlowe preferred boys to women.
And of course, cleverly, these sickly sweet speeches formed a shocking contrast with the actions that followed. The Lucifer figure, or ‘Lightborn’, was terrifying, he who was the murderer of the king on the orders of Mortimer, and even the rough men in the yard gasped at the violence enacted on stage. Then Mortimer entered, crowing over the death of the king. Coming to the edge of the stage he held out his hands to the audience and invited us to join him in rejoicing at the rightful killing of an unworthy monarch.
And so the play ended.
Guy turned and whispered fiercely to us, ‘That is not Marlowe’s ending! He told me that he includes the execution of Mortimer and the crowning of Edward III. They have chosen to end the play quite differently.’
‘They have chosen to end it as it suits their purpose,’ I said. ‘The question is, will Sir Rowland now act?’
‘The question is,’ Simon said, ‘how are those fellows down there going to act?’
He pointed down to the yard, where the groundlings, instead of drifting away as they would normally do at the end of a performance, were gathering together in tight groups, each about some sort of leader. Some were drawing out clubs or knives which had been hidden in loose shirt sleeves. I found myself sweating with alarm. This looked like the mustering of an army, about to go forth and do battle. Sir Rowland had come prepared to arrest the players. He could not possibly contain the whole of this dangerous crowd.
‘The Lord help us!’ Guy cried. ‘The rebellion is starting now. We had better leave at once, if we want to avoid a knife in the ribs.’
Around us other people were also scrambling to their feet. It seemed that the organised traitors were all down in the yard, while the occupants of the galleries were innocent playgoers. Sir Rowland had seen what was happening, for he was standing up and leaning over the balcony railing. He was jostled by people pushing past, trying to reach the stairs. Up here there was shouting and growing panic, while below it was ominously quiet, except for a hum of low voices, like a swarm of bees. Where was Nick?
Sir Rowland was gripping the railing hard with one hand, to stop himself being toppled head first over the edge of the balcony by the press of the crowd. With the other hand he raised something to his mouth. There was the shrill blast of a whistle, such as the Watch and the parish constables use. This must be the signal to Sir Rowland’s men, but would they know what to do? They had come to arrest a few shabby players, not to contain a dangerous riot.
A pale wave of turned-up faces below.
The whistle had given pause to the ruffians in the yard. Another blast of a whistle from somewhere near the stage. Then another from somewhere beneath us, which must be by the entrance to the yard from the street. Suddenly I saw Nick. He also had a whistle. He blew a series of short notes, some sort of signal to his men.
‘Come on, Kit.’ Simon was pushing me hard in the back, urging me to follow Guy who was fighting his way through the crowd to the stairs.
I lost sight of Guy, then stumbled over someone fallen on the floor. Panic had made people indifferent to others and men were climbing over the prone body of an elderly woman. I stooped down and got my hands under her armpits.
‘Help me, Simon!’ I gasped. ‘She’s heavy.’
Between us we managed to heave her to her feet. She was a stout, respectable body, though her hat was half dragged off her grey hair and there were dirty footprints on her clothes, where escaping playgoers had simply trampled over her. She seemed half dazed and hardly able to walk, so Simon and I seized an arm each and bundled her down the stairs between us.
At the bottom of the stairs men with pikes were blocking the exit from the inn yard – some of Sir Rowland’s men I hoped – but there was room for those of us coming down the stairs to push through the archway and into the street outside. Guy was waiting for us, his face creased in anxiety.
‘How do you feel now, mistress?’ I said, trying to brush the worst of the dust off her skirts. ‘Can you walk? Have you far to go?’
She felt for her hat and pulled it back into place. The colour was coming back into her cheeks.
‘Only to Cheapside.’ Her voice was shaking, and she clutched at my arm. ‘What is happening?’
‘Rogues bent on making trouble, but they’ll be stopped,’ Guy said soothingly. ‘Come with us, mistress. We’ll see you safely to Cheapside.’
Some of the crowd outside the Blue Boar were waiting, watching avidly to see what would happen next, although most, like us, were eager to get away. Even as we began to make our way to Thames Street, more men approached us at a run, from the Watch and the local constables, summoned by more blowing of whistles. There came a crash of splintering wood from inside the inn. I hoped no one had fallen from one of the galleries.
‘Should we not stay and help?’ I whispered to Simon.
The woman had now taken Guy’s arm and was walking ahead of us.
‘No need,’ he said. ‘I think Sir Rowland has it in hand. And did you say Nick Berden was there?’
‘Aye, and some of his men. He will help contain the trouble, though whether the players manage to slip away in the confusion is anyone’s guess.’
I stopped and called ahead. ‘Guy, I am going back. In all that crush, some may be injured.’
He looked over his shoulder. ‘Have a care, then, Kit. Wait until Sir Rowland has the trouble under control.’
As Guy continued along Thames Street with the woman, I turned back toward the inn.
‘I suppose I had better come with you,’ Simon said, ‘to keep you out of mischief.’
A few minutes later, back at the inn, we were met by a scene of chaos. Somehow Sir Rowland, the Watch, and the constables had managed to prevent the rioters from spilling out on to the street, but there was a fight going on in the yard of the Blue Boar. A few men were already under arrest and sitting sullenly in the dirty roadway, nursing their bruises. None had injuries that required my attention, though from the noise within, there would be worse to come. After about half an hour, it was over. Most of the rioters from the inn yard were led away by the Watch, to be shut up in the Poultry Compter, as the nearest prison. A few young boys were sent home to their mothers, as being no real danger to anyone. There were bloody noses and blackened eyes ap
lenty amongst them all, but nothing that needed serious physicking.
However, knives had been drawn. Within the yard of the inn there were four dead and half a dozen with serious knife wounds, so I had been right to return. I was on my knees tending to them when Nick hailed me. He had a bruise on his left temple and a small cut on his chin, but he was grinning happily.
‘That was an unexpected fight,’ I said.
‘Nay, not unexpected at all,’ he said. ‘My lads had word that today was the day, so we came along, to join in the fun.’
He squatted down beside me as I stitched up a gash in the arm of one of the rioters, who swore at me as I did so.
‘Haven’t lost your touch with the needle, I see.’
‘Shall I sew up your chin?’ I grinned at him.
‘Never fear. This will heal very happily by itself.’ He looked around at the damage to the inn’s doors and railings. ‘The innkeeper will spend more on repairs than ever he was paid for the use of this place.’
‘Were the players arrested?’ I asked, as we stood up.
‘Aye.’ He jerked his head toward the pile of broken timber which had once formed the temporary stage. Sir Rowland was there, in conversation with one of the sergeants I recognised from Wandesford’s inquest. More of his men surrounded a group of players, who looked excessively sorry for themselves. This was not how their triumph on the London stage was meant to end. I could pick out most of them from the rags of their costumes which they still wore, although I could not see the one I thought of as the leading player.
‘I think there is one missing,’ I said. ‘Him who played Mortimer.’
‘Aye, you have the right of it. My lads chased him through the cellars, but he escaped somehow. Still, Sir Rowland has done well to capture most of them.’
He lowered his voice. ‘There were some shocking things said and done in that play, were there not? I pride myself on a strong stomach, but that Gaveston, and then the murder of the king . . .’
‘That is Marlowe for you,’ I said. ‘His mind is ever fixed on the darkest side of the human condition.’
Simon had gone off to help where he could, but he reappeared now.
‘There’s a lad here was pushed over the balcony,’ he said. ‘You’d best look at him, Kit. There is something amiss with his shoulder.’
‘Then he is lucky it is no worse,’ I said, picking up my satchel. ‘He could have broken his head or his back.’
‘I think the fellow he landed on suffered worse,’ Simon said. ‘He is one of the dead.’
The boy with the damaged shoulder was not one of the rioters. He had been sitting on the second gallery with his father, but in the place furthest from the top of the stairs. When the rush to leave had begun he had been shoved aside, hard against the gallery railing, which must have been rotten at that point. Under the impact the wood had given way, so that he fell in a cascade of broken timber into the yard below. It had been his good luck that one of the men in the yard had broken his fall, at the cost of his own life, for one of the timbers had broken his neck.
Seated on a stool, the boy was weeping softly, though he tried not to show it, while his father stood over him looking helplessly around.
‘Now this is painful, I know,’ I said, when I had felt the shoulder carefully, ‘but there is nothing broken here. It is dislocated.’
The lad looked at me blankly.
‘The joint of your shoulder has been knocked out of place,’ I said. ‘I can put it back. It will hurt while I do it, but afterwards it will only be a little sore. Do you understand?’
He nodded, and wiped his eyes and nose with the back of his good hand. I got Simon and Nick to hold him steady while I pulled the arm out sharply until the shoulder clicked back into place. The boy gave one loud yell of pain.
‘That is it,’ I said. ‘Now I am just going to strap it, so it is held in place while everything heals, and I’ll fix a sling to take the weight of your arm. Soon you will be quite fit again.’
When I had finished, I turned to the father. ‘Let him rest for a few days, and don’t let him use that arm if possible. He should have no further trouble.’
The man fumbled in a worn purse for a coin, but I shook my head.
‘Get you away home and let his mother fuss over him.’
By now the inn yard was almost clear, except for the bodies of the dead. Sir Rowland’s men were escorting the sorry group of players, trailing their shabby finery, out through the archway. Some of Nick’s men were assisting them. Tom Lewen tilted his cap at me as he joined them.
‘Well,’ Nick said, ‘that has been a more entertaining afternoon than sitting over my accounts, trying to puzzle out why I am always three shillings and seven pence farthing either richer or poorer than I should be!’
‘Always the same amount?’ Simon asked.
‘Always the same amount.’
I laughed. I had forgotten that these two knew each other.
‘Come back with me,’ Nick said, ‘and help me drink a jug of excellent beer. I will allow Kit to dab some of his marvellous salve on my chin the while.’
So that was what we did.
The following day, Sir Rowland sent word that he would like to see Master Burbage, Guy, Will, Simon, and me in his office at midday, if that would be convenient.
‘It will be convenient if he does not detain us too long,’ Master Burbage grumbled. ‘I have two playhouses to run, and I am building a new house for one of the Shoreditch aldermen up on Hackney Downs. I have been neglecting business at the Curtain of late, and we have not so many weeks of good weather left to us.’
The rest of us, however, were keen to learn whatever Sir Rowland might have been able to discover thus far from the players. Indeed, I was sure that Master Burbage was just as keen, but he wished to emphasise quite how busy he was. Cuthbert was left in charge of preparations for the afternoon’s performance. Guy would need to hurry back, for he was on stage in the first act, though Will and Simon had only small parts in acts three and four.
When we arrived at Sir Rowland’s office, we found Master Henslowe, Ned Alleyn, Marlowe, and the copyist Holles already there. On Sir Rowland’s desk there was a shabby satchel not unlike my own.
After we were all seated, a little like a small inquest jury of our own, Sir Rowland steepled his hands beneath his chin and nodded at the satchel.
‘Master Holles has identified this as his satchel which was stolen from him after he was attacked in Southwark several weeks ago. It still contains a few miscellaneous personal papers of his.’
‘What of my play?’ Marlowe demanded.
Sir Rowland frowned. ‘In good time, Master Marlowe. At first the players we arrested claimed they knew nothing of the satchel, then they claimed that it belonged to one of them. They swore that play of Edward II had been written by one of their company, the very fellow who, unfortunately, managed to avoid capture by us.’
Marlowe sprang to his feet, clenching his fists. He looked as though he might be about to attack Sir Rowland, but Master Henslowe grabbed his arm and dragged him down again. I thought him exceptionally ill mannered, but I caught Will giving him a sympathetic look.
‘However,’ Sir Rowland continued, as though he had not noticed Marlowe, ‘when my sergeants searched the rooms at the Blue Boar occupied by these rogues, they found this.’
He opened a drawer and drew out a thick wad of paper, which looked, to my eye, about the right size for the script of a five-act play. It was dirty and dog eared. Sir Rowland laid it on his desk and peered at it, as if seeing it for the first time. He cleared his throat.
‘The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England, with the Tragical Fall of Proud Mortimer.’
He looked across at Marlowe. ‘Would that be your play that was stolen, Master Marlowe?’
‘It would,’ Marlowe said, looking relieved, ‘I shall be glad to have it back.’
He stood up and reached out for the manuscript, but Sir Row
land laid his hands on it. ‘All in good time. Please keep your seat, Master Marlowe.’
Glowering, Marlowe sat down again.
‘Now, Master Shakespeare, we also found this.’
He laid another manuscript on the desk. This was even more untidy, consisting of uneven sizes of paper, frayed at the edges.
‘Who might be able to identify the hand?’
Master Burbage stood up and joined Sir Rowland at the desk. He turned over the sheets slowly, then finally sighed.
‘This is undoubtedly the hand of John Stoker. It is an ill formed hand, almost illiterate. I am surprised these fellows were able to read it. There is no doubt in my mind that Stoker wrote this. Poor Will, how he has massacred your work!’
‘Very good,’ Sir Rowland said. ‘We have established that this is Master Marlowe’s play, stolen from Master Holles in the satchel which he has identified as his. We have also established that this is a garbled version of Master Shakespeare’s play, written by the deceased John Stoker, most likely from imperfect memory.’
‘Have these men admitted that they got the play from Stoker?’ Guy asked.
‘Oh indeed, they have admitted it.’
‘Have they admitted that they killed him?’ I dared to ask.
‘That too they have admitted,’ he said grimly.
I had a good idea under what conditions the admission had been made.
‘What I think none of us understand,’ Guy said slowly, ‘is why they should kill Stoker. That is why we have half believed all along that he was simply the victim of an ordinary street stabbing. If he was working for them, why should they kill him? They might have wanted him to steal more plays.’
