26th February: Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe, dramatist and government agent, was born on this date in 1564.

1. Marlowe was born in Canterbury to shoemaker John Marlowe and his wife Catherine. 26 February is the recorded date of his baptism, so his actual birthday was probably a few days before. He was, therefore, two months older than Shakespeare who was baptised on 26 April.
2. He nearly didn't get his Master of Arts degree from Cambridge, because of a rumour that he was planning to go to France and train as a Catholic priest. However, the Privy Council intervened, commending him for "faithful dealing" and "good service" to the Queen, and the degree was awarded.
3. This, and the fact that Marlowe was often absent from the university for longer periods than were usually allowed, and records showing that when he was there he spent more money on food and drink than his scholarship income should have provided, led to speculation he was actually a government spy and the aforementioned rumour was to do with one of his espionage missions.
4. As well as a spy, during his lifetime, Marlowe was also accused of being a brawler, a heretic, a magician, a duellist, a tobacco-user, a counterfeiter, and a rakehell (a hellraiser or womanising gambler).
5. He was arrested in Flushing in the Netherlands in 1592, accused of the counterfeiting of coins, but was never charged or imprisoned for this. Again this is seen as evidence that he was on some sort of spying mission at the time.
6. Marlowe was reputed to be an atheist during his life, which was tantamount to a crime at the time - being an enemy of church and state. Again no-one is sure whether these rumours came about as a result of roles Marlowe adopted in order to be an effective spy. Seems we'll never know for sure.
7. The first play he wrote was Dido, Queen of Carthage, co-written with Thomas Nashe.
8. His other plays are: Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta, Doctor Faustus, Edward II and The Massacre at Paris.
9. Marlowe is said to have died in a brawl in a pub, but again no-one is completely sure what happened and speculation has been rife. Theories include: It was a fight over a woman; it was a disagreement over the bill (the reckoning); or a debt; someone had him killed - a jealous wife, Sir Walter Raleigh fearing he might be incriminated if Marlowe was tortured, he was killed on the orders of father and son Lord Burghley and Sir Robert Cecil, who thought that his plays contained Catholic propaganda, the Queen had him killed because he was an atheist; he faked his death to avoid a trial and execution for atheism. We'll never know.
10. Shakespeare paid tribute to Marlowe in some of his plays. In As You Like It, he quotes a line from Marlowe's poem, Hero and Leander ("Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might, 'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?'") and also "When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room," apparently a reference to Marlowe's alleged fight over the bill, also a line in Marlowe's Jew of Malta – "Infinite riches in a little room".