And those who have true skill in the works of the Lord Verulam, like great Masters in Painting, can tell by the Design, the Strength, the way of Colouring, whether he was the Author of this or the other Piece, though his Name be not to it. -Archbishop Tenison, Baconiana or Certaine Genuine Remains of Sir Francis Bacon (1679).

We know him as Christopher Marlowe. Marley is more appropriate. This was the name recorded in the Treasurer's accounts at King's School, Canterbury; the name both he and his father signed on the will of Mistress Katherine Benchkin; and the name on the record of his appearance before the Privy Council.[19] In this article I have resurrected Marley because another man is hidden behind him, and we must distinguish between the two.

The other man brought light. He flamed across the Elizabethan stage like a comet in the night sky. Marley brought darkness. He appeared for only a moment, emerging from the shadow world of Elizabethan spies. Then he was gone again, stabbed to death by a bawdy serving man who was a rival in his "lewd" love. After his sordid death at the age of 29 on May 30, 1593, Marley, the double-dealer, the deceiver, the denizen of the lower depths of society was swallowed up again in the shadows from which he had appeared.

The other man was an immortal. His light will burn as long as men can breathe, or eyes can see. As for Marley nothing of him remains except sometimes his ghost beckons from the past saying, "There is something here that you must see. Follow me if you would see things as they really were."

In contrast to our idea of Marlowe as renowned with the populace for his very popular plays, contemporaries (with the exception of Vaughan in 1600) knew almost nothing about him, or the details of his death. The only place his death had any impact with the public was in the imagination of the Puritans who saw the event as a visitation of divine judgment on an atheistic blasphemer. Thomas Beard first mentions his death in his "Theatre of Gods Judgements" in 1597. Beard called him Marlin, and knew he was a Cambridge scholar, but thought he was killed on a London Street. Beard said that even after this "barking dog" was stabbed in the head with his own dagger, he cursed and blasphemed to the last breath (according to the coroner Marlowe died instantly). Francis Meres, in "Palladis Tamia", in 1598, had the name, Christopher Marlow, but said he was stabbed to death by a bawdy serving man, a rival in his lewd (presumably homosexual) love.[19][11]

Two years later in 1600 William Vaughan in "The Golden Grove" had the story straight. But Vaughan knew somebody who knew somebody. Sir Thomas Perrot, half-brother to his stepmother, had been married to Dorothy Devereaux, the younger sister of the Earl of Essex. When Perrot died in 1593 she married Henry Percy, popularly known as the `Wizard Earl', a close associate of Sir Walter Ralegh in the "school of night" circle with which Marlowe was linked. Vaughan uses the name Christopher Marlow, knows he was killed at Detford [Deptford], a little village three miles from London, by a man named Ingram and that the dagger thrust went into his eye. Vaughan adds the significant detail that it was Ingram who had invited Marlowe there.[19][11]

After Vaughan, accounts are uninformed as before. In 1618 Edmund Rudierde in "The Thunderbolt of Gods Wrath Against Harde-Hearted and Stiffe-Necked Sinners" is back to Beard's account. John Earle in "MICRO-COSMOGRAPHIE" in 1628 has him in a Baudy-house when he was killed. John Aubrey in his "Brief Lives" written between 1669 and 1696 says (oddly enough) that it was Ben Jonson who "killed Mr. Marlow, the poet, on Bunhill, coming from the Green Curtain play-house." And lastly, Anthony Wood in his "Athenae Oxonienses", published in 1691, reverts to Francis Meres' story.[19][11]

The fact is not a single play had been published under the name of Christopher Marlowe at the time of his death. The first part of Tamerlane, published in 1590, was published anonymously. The portrait of Marlowe seen in all the authoritative texts is guesswork pure and simple. No one really knows whose portrait it is. There is a hiatus in the records concerning Marlowe. The hiatus is much like that in the Shakespeare records, although not as absolute. In his biography of Marlowe, "Kind Kit" Hugh Ross Williamson said:[17]

"If `to know' is taken to mean `to have indisputably authentic documentary evidence of', all we know of Christopher Marlowe's life could be comfortably written on one sheet of writing paper. We do not even `know' that he wrote Tamberlaine, since there is no direct contemporary reference to him as author and his name is not on the title-page of the first published edition of the play during his lifetime in 1590."

After Marlowe's death, works under his name (listed below at their first publication) were as follows:

1594-The Tragedie of Dido - by Christopher Marlowe
1594-Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward II - By Chris. Marlow Gent.
1600-Lucans First Book Translated Line for Line - by Chr Marlowe
1598-Hero and Leander - Begun by Christopher Marloe, finished by George Chapman 1604-The Tragical History of D.Faustus - by Ch. Marl. undated-The Massacre at Paris - by Christopher Marlow
1633-The Famous Tragedy of The Rich Jew of Malta - by Christopher Marlo[19]

Did some concealed writer seize the mask that had so conveniently presented itself? To know what really occurred at the dawn of the Elizabethan Renaissance we must look behind the Marlowe myth at the actual man in the context of his time. We must resurrect Marley. And we must meet the Marlovians on their home ground. The Marlovians have also resurrected Marley. They theorize Marlowe was not killed in 1593, but lived on to secretly author the "Shakespeare" plays.[6][10] On the face of it their theory has its merits. The dramatic works that end at the end of Marlowe's career, and begin at the beginning of Shakespeare's are identical in almost every feature. The evidence that Marlowe wrote the "Shakespeare" plays is very strong indeed. The idea the Marlovians are not inclined to entertain is that there is another theory that doesn't require tweaking the facts about Marlowe's death. PERHAPS BOTH WORKS WERE WRITTEN BY A THIRD PARTY WHO WENT ON TO UTILIZE SHAKESPEARE AS HIS MASK AFTER MARLEY WAS KILLED.

In any case, there is certainly some mystery connected with most of what we know about Marlowe. In, "Christopher Marlowe, The Man in His Time" John Bakeless says:[1]

"There is always something just a little irregular about Marlowe's career. He enters the King's School when he is within the age limit by a few weeks only. He draws the stipend of a Canterbury scholar even before he is a regular member of his college or University. He comes and goes more or less as he pleases, both the Buttery Book and the Scholarship Accounts showing his master's degree only by the direct intervention of Her Majesty's Privy Council. He dies six years later by the assassin's dagger under circumstances which are, to say the least, peculiar, and at a time when vague charges which no one now understands are pending against him in that same Privy Council which six years before had been so friendly."

We know now that some of those irregularities about Marlowe's career resulted because he was a spy working for the Elizabethan Secret Service. As far back as June of 1587 the Privy Council sent a sharply worded letter to the authorities of Cambridge University, where Marlowe was enrolled, regarding a student named Christopher Morley (without any doubt our man Marley). Morley, who was due to receive his MA degree the following month, was being `defamed' by certain people who sought to block his candidature. The council said, among other things in their reprimand, that `he had done

Her Majesty good service, & deserved to be rewarded for his faithful dealing'. Then they even resorted to name dropping, saying, `it was not Her Majesty's pleasure that anyone employed, as he had been, in matters touching the benefit of his country, should be defamed by those that are ignorant in th' affairs he went about.'[11][19]

This fact that the student Marley was a spy for the Elizabethan Secret Service throws some light on Marley, but nevertheless he is still a ghost from the past. Beckoning. Saying there is something here that you need to look at. We must follow him if we want to see things as they really are. We must revisit the phenomena known as the Elizabethan Literary Renaissance, and we must peer into the shadows to see what is hidden behind the name of this man who signed himself: Christofer Marley,

Something very strange happened on the way to the Elizabethan Renaissance. That too, too solid phenomenon melted, thawed, and resolved itself into a wilderness of mirrors, making it difficult to tell if it was made up of a score of faces reflected in one mirror, or one face reflected in a score of mirrors. Long time student of the Elizabethan Era, Frances Yates, remarks, "I do not think it is sufficiently realized how very peculiar the Elizabethan Renaissance was." This is quite true. Certain features of the Elizabethan Renaissance were exceedingly strange. They were so strange in fact they can only be accounted for by the presence of a superman. The Elizabethan Renaissance was both a scientific and a literary Renaissance. Hold the mirror up to both, look closely, and the sole face you will see in the mirror is Francis Bacon.

The mirror in Bacon's signature, symbolized the mirror of AthenA used to capture Medusa. Bacon used the symbol in his own name to let others in the know that he was a spearshaker and member of the Knights of the Helmet the group that paid homage to AthenA's great attributes

There was a curious similarity among all the great works of the Elizabethan Literary Renaissance. The poetry of the Elizabethan Literary Renaissance proper had a quality all it's own not found before, and not found since. It appeared suddenly, this remarkable quality, lasted only for a short while, then disappeared, like some exotic flower that bloomed briefly and then vanished. There were the abstractions of the old morality. The farcical gossip of Gammer Turton's Needle. The pale and dignified people of Gorboduc.

Very rarely was there even a touching or dignified phrase. At one moment only the wooden verse of Gorboduc, or the childish rusticity of Like Will to Like; at the next there was the new poetry, the unapproachable poetry proper, which all criticism, all rationalization, could not indicate, and does not account for. In the very midst of the babble of the old verse, appear the words:

"Seated in the hearing of a hundred streams"

This exquisite line of Peele's gives way to the myriad graceful fancies of Lyly, the exquisite snatches of Greene, the majestic mighty line of Marlowe, the unmatched poetics of Spenser. They appear briefly, almost tentatively, like the bursts of those spectacular fireworks displays where every one gasps and emits cries of pleasure while the engineer is busy behind the scenes preparing even more spectacular bursts.

There is no other phenomenon in history like the Elizabethan Renaissance. It was as though a young phoenix was making his first flights. Testing his wings for the inimitable flight that would make all other winged creatures appear earthbound. There were the trial runs of Lyly, Greene, Peele, Spenser and Marlowe. Then it happened. Slowly, but majestically, soaring upward, tentatively still at first, appeared to the startled viewer the august figure of Shakespeare. At first he could scarcely be distinguished from Marlowe, that other dramatist whom the critics said might have equaled him. But Marlowe was killed, and here, following his death, were plays in his exact style and language under the name of Shakespeare; gradually changing until they reached the mature style proper to Shakespeare. There were traces too, of Lyly, of Greene, and of Peele. He combined the best features of each as if before he had been experimenting in various styles. The subject matter, even entire phrases were identical. Then he settled into his own, proper, never to be rivaled, or even equaled, form. But still there remained that evidence of something very peculiar about the Elizabethan Renaissance. The various strains of the new poetry as it appeared had a consistency, a quality, a form all its own; as if it had came from one mind and one pen. And now that the maturity had been reached in Shakespeare the traces of the apprenticeship still remained in entire passages that had been transcribed bodily from one or the other of the previous masks of the phoenix.

This strange phenomenon began in the 1580s, soon after young Francis Bacon returned from France. When Francis Bacon arrived in France the fame of the Pleiade was at its zenith. They were seven men who worked to remodel their language and its literary forms on the mode of the two great classical tongues, and reinforce it with new words from these languages. They realized both the defects, and the possibilities of their language. Through a judicious selection of "loan words" from Greek and Latin, and borrowings from the melodious forms of Italian poetry, they toiled to build a better language. Their goal was a vehicle to serve great writers that would be the peer, if not the superior, of any language, classical or modern. The French Renaissance was not the result of a spontaneous flowering of genius, but of sheer hard work, entailing the mastering of foreign languages, accompanied by devotion to an ideal.[14]

This was the situation that met young Francis Bacon upon his arrival in France. From the age of 12 he had devoted all of his energies toward the end of bringing about a complete renovation of all the arts and sciences of man. Now, at the age of 15, He stood at the pinnacle of an intellectual peak that probably never before and never again will be paralleled throughout the entire history of this planet. Three years later Bacon returned to England and the flowering of the English Renaissance began. What man can do, superman can outdo. Bacon had become a Pleiade of one.[14]

The French have an endearing phrase, "jeune filles en fleur." This phrase describes that point when gauche young girls suddenly blossom into specimens of appealing femininity. Quite suddenly the gauche young English Literary Renaissance was "en fleur." But there was more involved here than appeared on the surface. These literary productions were transforming not only the literary forms but the language as well. Scholars have been amazed at how many new words Shakespeare introduced into the English Language, but other, less studied, works of this Renaissance made contributions as well. We know it was a habitual practice of Bacon to coin new words. In addition, papers remain from his workshop in which he painstakingly gathered hundreds upon hundreds of phrases and forms of speech most of which later appeared in the Shakespeare works, and all of which appeared in the works of the English Literary Renaissance. The English language blossomed like a rare orchid.

All this took place in crude, barbaric, Elizabethan England. Where torture and public execution were commonplace; where the screams of the dying echoed through the market places; where the very language was so crude, every educated person had, perforce, to be a linguist; where there were only fragments of a literature, and science was non-existent. It was here that superman (a man compared to whom Da Vinci was an infant, Goethe and Newton small children) made his appearance.

The result was as if, side by side with the intellectual fireworks of the Elizabethan Era, an intellectual H-bomb had been detonated. There was an unprecedented explosion of language, literature, and scientific inquiry. Quite suddenly a provincial, West German, dialect was refashioned into the instrument whose scope and flexibility caused it to spread from its island home with explosive speed to become the major global language.

Fragments of a literature were refashioned and expanded into the most astounding literary phenomenon the world has ever known. The uncoordinated researches of individuals scattered all over Europe were redirected and focused into the most amazing phenomenon of rational inquiry in recorded history. (Records still exist that reveal Bacon using Tobie Mathew as liaison to encourage and direct the researches of Galileo. Who knows what other activities of Bacon's have been lost to history).[9]

A continual stream of literary works loaded with new literary forms and a whole new vocabulary was rolling off the presses. No doubt, it was a costly business. In 1591 Bacon wrote a letter to his Uncle Burghley appealing for his support. He referred to his "rare and unaccustomed suit." Scholars still debate the exact nature of this. The letter itself answered that question:

"And if your lordship will not carry me on, I will not do as Anaxagoras did, who reduced himself with contemplation unto voluntary poverty: but this I will do, I will sell the inheritance that I have and purchase some lease of quick revenue, or some office of gain, that shall be executed by deputy, and so give over all care of service, AND BECOME SOME SORRY BOOK-MAKER."

It is evident Burghley did not "carry him on" for we next see from Francis a letter to his brother Anthony in 1594:

"I have here an idle pen or two, specially one, that was cozened, thinking to have got some money this term. I pray send me somewhat else for them to write out besides your Irish collection, which is almost done. There is a collection of King James, of foreign states, largeliest of Flanders; which, though it be no great matter, yet I would be glad to have it."

Bacon was working apace to keep the books pouring off the presses. Anthony's Irish collection was probably the work published as, "A View of the Present State of Ireland" under the name of Edmund Spenser. The rate at which Bacon wrote and published books can only be described as superhuman. He devised special emblematic designs to mark these books. Foremost is a headpiece with a light and dark "A" in the design. This appears on many of the principal works of the English Literary Renaissance.[14]

When Bacon was 17 the famous portrait painter, Nicholas Hilliard, painted his portrait. Hilliard was amazed by Bacon's brilliance. He inscribed a Latin phrase beneath the portrait, which has often been translated, "If only I could paint his mind!" This idea resurfaces frequently in works containing evidence of Bacon's handiwork. In Ben Jonson's address to the reader at the beginning of Shakespeare's First Folio we see the idea expressed:

O, could he but have drawn his wit [mind]
As well in brass, as he hath hit
His face; the Print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass.
But, since he cannot, Reader, look
Not on his Picture, but his Book.

This idea was further developed on the title page of the "Minerva Britanna" published under the name of Henry Peacham in 1612. An illustration depicted an oval wreathed with laurel with a motto wrapped around the laurel that translated as, "One lives in his genius, other things depart in death." Inside the oval was the proscenium of a theater and a curtain that concealed all but the arm of someone holding a pen who had written upside down, outside the curtain, the Latin phrase,

"Mente vide Bori" i.e. "By the mind I shall be seen."

Bacon remained concealed as he labored to bring about the Elizabethan Renaissance. He can only to be seen by the mind. His concealed works were not restricted to England alone.[2]

The case of Michel Montaigne is typical of writings with suspicious connections to Francis Bacon, but never quite enough information to establish his authorship. Evidence associates Francis Bacon with Henri and the court of Navarre while he was in France. It is quite plausible to think he became acquainted with Montaigne then, since Montaigne was a close friend of Henri's, and a frequent presence at the court of Navarre. What is known for certain is that when Anthony Bacon went to France soon after Francis returned to England, he went first to meet Henri at his court in Navarre, and then went to Bordeaux where he met and became close friends with Montaigne. Anthony remained a friend with Montaigne until Montaigne's death in 1592.[5] William Smedley says there were notes in the 1595 edition of the Essays of Montaigne, every word of which, "is from the hand of Francis Bacon."[2] The third edition of Montaigne's essays also seems to point to Bacon as the author. In the engraving on the title page was a building in which could be seen the reversed letter "F", and the letter "B" lying on its back that was similar to the "F" and "B" in Alciat's emblem book in 1577.[2] This was later repeated in Geoffrey Whitney's "Choice of Emblems" published in Leyden in 1586. In The Tempest there is a long speech of Gonzalo's that is taken word for word from Montaigne. The dedication to the "Attourney's Academy", also seems to point toward Bacon's authorship of the works of Montaigne. Montaigne is French for Mountain. The reference to a mountain in this dedication is brought in very awkwardly, and when the author says he has revealed a secret, but now puts the curtain back over it, the "Mountaine" seems to be the only thing he could have been referring to. The wording of the dedication was as follows:

"To no Mountaine for Eminence, or supportment for Height. Francis Lord Verulam and Viscount St. Albans."[2]

O give me leave to pull the Curtayne by
That clouds thy Worth in such obscurity.
Stay Seneca, stay but awhile thy bleeding,
T'accept what I received at thy Reading;
Here I present it in a solemne strayne,
And thus I pluckt the Curtayne backe again.

These subtle indications go on and on. The 54 Scholars, who translated the King James Version of the bible, turned the convoluted prose of their translation over to King James whose prose was even more convoluted. A year later it reappeared marked with the emblem Bacon used to mark his books, transformed into the beautifully clear and concise language that perpetually mandates its position at the pinnacle of English prose.[14] Baconians have found evidence linking Bacon with the works under the major names clustered around the time of the Elizabethan Literary Renaissance. These names are: George Gascoigne; Robert Laneham; Thomas Rogers; John Byshop; Stephen Gosson; John Lyly; Thomas Watson; Robert Greene; George Peele; George Puttenham; Andrea Alciat; Gabriel Whitney; Timothy Bright; Pierre de la Primaudaye; Thomas Nashe; Edmund Spenser; Thomas Kyd; Thomas Lodge; Michel Montaigne; Miguel Cervantes; Henry Peacham; William Shakespeare; Gustavus Selenus; Robert Burton; John Barclay; and Robert Fludd. The claims of Baconians are dismissed as the ravings of cranks by orthodox scholars, but are they really? I would suggest the reader try to read with an open mind the following works:

The Greatest of Literary Problems by James Phinney Baxter
Edmund Spenser and the Impersonation of Francis Bacon by Edward George Harmon
The Mystery of Francis Bacon by William Smedley
Tudor Problems by Parker Woodward
Who Wrote Shakespeare? by John Mitchell
The Bacon-Shakespeare Essays by Mather Walker

If this doesn't cause you to reassess the situation there is only one thing left for you to do. Don't pass Go. Don't collect $200. Go directly to the nearest mental institution and have yourself committed. Trust me. Compared to the alternative of spending the remainder of your life as a Stratfordian that course is infinitely preferable. Besides, when the final judgment of history is rendered the Stratfordians will be a laughing stock. You wouldn't want to be a laughing stock would you? SIGN THE PAPERS NOW.

For the benefit of those who missed the first act, I need to reiterate at this point that I have provided proof Bacon wrote the Shakespeare works in various writings posted at the sirbacon.org site. The basic proof is the message, "SIT THE DIAL AT NBW, F. BACON, TOBEY" on the first page of the plays in the First Folio. I have verified mathematically that this message could not have occurred by chance. Moreover, the AT in this message is in the 32nd speech from the beginning of The Tempest and correlates with NBW, the 32nd direction of a compass, beginning with the direction of north. As the evidence develops this is part of a pattern of four sets of 32 speeches that correspond to Bacon's four logic tables in his Novum Organum, making a total of 128, and speech 129 has the message "it begins again."

This indicates Bacon incorporated his logic device in the plays, along with the design of an Intellectual Compass to be used in association with the logic device. I have also demonstrated that The Tempest allegorizes in detail the divisions of learning in Bacon's Advancement of Learning. Taken together these facts prove Bacon wrote The Tempest.

But wait, the cup is not full. The Tempest is also constructed in such a fashion that it incorporates the Janus Design. What is the Janus Design? Simply this: Each play has two faces. One face looks toward the past, the other toward the future. One face looks at the course and progress of the ancients in some particular aspect of knowledge. The other, looking toward the future contrasts Bacon's method with theirs and shows that his is better by using his discovery device to inquire into the form of a related aspect of knowledge. This design is certainly the work of Francis Bacon, for he describes and states his intent to use it in his "Masculine Birth of Time":

"Nevertheless it is important to understand how the present is like a seer with two faces, one looking toward the future, and the other toward the past. Accordingly I have decided to prepare for your instruction tables of both ages, containing not only the past course and progress of science, but also anticipations of things to come."

Bacon answered the question as to why the Janus Design was included in the Plays when he said in the Novum Organum:

"I am building in the human understanding a true model of the world."

This was a major feature of his Intellectual Globe. The Old World of the past and the New World of the future reflect a major feature of the world of His time: the Old World around the Mediterranean, and the New World (America), that had been discovered far west of the Pillars of Hercules. Hence the two faces. Moreover, a true model of the planet would reflect the annual cycle, and Janus, who begins the year, holds the number of the days of the year in his hand, and looks both to the past and the future, does just this. The Janus Design is part of the design of his Intellectual Globe that I described in "The Secret of the Shakespeare Plays." This design is just one of the secrets in the plays.

In essays covering 15 of the plays I have shown they incorporate this design. There is similar evidence of this design in the other plays. Therefore Bacon wrote all of the plays. The fact that Bacon wrote the Shakespeare plays throws a great light on the entire phenomenon of the Elizabethan Literary Renaissance. A Shakespeare and a Bacon in one skin boggles the imagination. It tells us that he was, as the French say, "capable de tout", capable of anything. It tells us an extraordinary amount of his literary output was written using as a mask a man who actually lived at the time. It suggests, and indeed, flings the door wide open to the idea that He produced other writings while concealing himself behind other masks.

There is another side to this story. We must never forget England was at war with Spain at the time. (An undeclared war with Spain existed until the time of England's formal entry into the war with Spain in 1585. This war continued until James came to the throne in 1603). It is difficult today to realize the state of tension and paranoia that existed in England then. Lacey Baldwin Smith paints the situation accurately in his book, "Treason in Tudor England." England had recently been a Catholic nation. The country was divided almost equally between overt Protestants, and covert Catholics. Catholic Spain, with a power hopelessly superior to that of the little island kingdom of England, was the death. She lived in constant fear. Schemes to assassinate her by deadly perfumes, balls of fatal incense, poisoned portions, silver bullets, arrows, and daggers abounded. These were desperate men, indeed, who courted the danger of judicial interrogation with benefit of rack and dungeon, and the terror of the traitor's agonizing and humiliating end- hanging, castration, and disembowelment. Nevertheless, crypto-catholics, agents provocateur, and traitors lurked everywhere.

This is the background for the other aspect to Francis Bacon's secret career at this time, and of the Marley who lived in this shadow world. Bacon met Thomas Phillepes, the right hand man of England's spymaster Francis Walsingham, while he was in France (1576-1579). Walsingham was well known to Bacon. He was close to the Bacon family. He was a close friend of Nicholas Bacon's for years before Nicholas died in 1579.[16]

Soon after Bacon returned from France his brother Anthony went abroad to work as an Intelligence Operative for Walsingham. After his return from France, Francis and Phellipes remained close, and were often in each other's company. In one of those rare glimpses into the secret history of the time we see them together as they go to meet the spy known as 007.[4] (Yes Virginia there was a 007, his real name was John Dee, and he lived in Elizabethan times).[3] It is a peculiar fact that it was only after Bacon's return from France that the hitherto lackluster career of Francis Walsingham, previously at a standstill, suddenly soared. Was Bacon, behind the scenes, running the Secret Service, and giving Walsingham a great boost at the same time?

What we know for certain is that Walsingham's died at eleven o'clock of the night of April 6, 1590, and in the post-Walsingham era two power centers quickly emerged. There is strong evidence that Francis Bacon transferred the principal mechanism of the Secret Service, along with the services of Phillepes and his brother Anthony (who had worked as a spy for Walsingham) to the Earl of Essex. And this evidence being strong, the evidence that Francis Bacon had been secretly in charge of the Elizabethan Secret Service operations all along is equally strong. In the post-Walsingham era, the other portion of the Elizabethan Intelligence network was assumed under the figure head of Lord Burghley with his son Robert Cecil as the new spymaster, and Sir Thomas Heneage running the operation under his direction.

During World War II, Heinrich Himmler, Nazi thug, albeit brilliant and avid student of the occult had all the huge mechanism of the Abwher at his command. Evidently SS scholars uncovered information about the Elizabethan Secret Service not revealed previously. Himmler stated categorically that the Rosicrucians were a branch of the Elizabethan Secret Service.[3] It must be remembered that Ben Jonson in one of his masques (The Fortunate Isles, 1629), depicts Meerfool, who is searching for the Rosicrucians, and is told that they are, "The Players, you fool!" And Johann Valentin Andreae's "Christian Mythology" in 1618 referred to the Rosicrucians as "an admirable Fraternity which plays comedies throughout Europe."[21]

For some idea of the schemes an imaginative and resourceful person might have conjured up during those years from 1580 until the death of Walsingham in 1590 and afterwards we have only to examine the Secret Service career of Ian Fleming during England's war with Germany in World War II. Like Wild Bill Donovan of the OSS during World War II, Bacon recruited "University Wits" as his agents. In his work in the Elizabethan Secret Service Bacon utilized playwrights and players as spies. The players were the invisible Red Cross men who could go everywhere unsuspected with the large Red Cross of England on the side of their wagons. This takes us directly into the shadow world of our man Marley, who, as everyone knows, was a playwright, and was also dead as a mackerel on that day in June of 1593. But who, as not so many know, was a spy. The best reference for investigating the circumstances surrounding Marlowe's death is the book, "The Reckoning" by Charles Nicholl. Nicholl digs into a multitude of sources and shows not only that the people with Marlowe at the time of his death were spies, but that in the shadow world of the Elizabethan Secret Service there were very close connections with the Elizabethan Theater.

Another interesting book on this subject is "Our Elusive Willy" by Ida Sedgwick Proper.[13] Although I do not agree with some of her conclusions, she spent years digging through the public records of England, and turned up a good deal of interesting information. Proper said Walsingham evidently thought people trained to be actors would make the best spies. She says the "Areopagus Club" of whom she was convinced Spenser (one of Bacon's masks) was the activating force was based on the Pleiade, and included in `the school's efforts was a school for actors, from whom Walsingham hoped to draw some actors to serve as spies'. She adds,

`That the school of actors had their part in the spy system of Walsingham is quite evident from the record. That they were also students of poetry and drama is also evident. Walsingham used this group from which to select his special spies.'

Obviously I can't examine all phases of the Elizabethan Literary Renaissance in this article that I am working strenuously to keep short (although it keeps getting longer). But, with the fact that Bacon was the author of the Shakespeare Plays as a base, I can concentrate on Christopher Marlowe. I will demonstrate that as the evidence diminishes Marley, Bacon burgeons as the author of the works of this dramatist who stood next to Shakespeare in the Elizabethan galaxy of stars. Certainly if Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespeare Plays he was capable of writing any of the other works that appeared in the Elizabethan Literary Renaissance, and Marlowe is the next logical figure to consider after Shakespeare.

Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. To Mistress Bull's dining room at Deptford on that famous Friday morning of June 1, 1593. To the inquest into Marley's death. Marley was dead, to begin with, there is no doubt whatsoever about that. Marley was a dead as a doornail. That must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of this essay. His body lay on a chest in the middle of Mistress Bull's dining room.[17] The dagger-thrust through the right eye that had killed him made it a most unsavory sight to gaze upon. But there were 16 men there, all tried and true, and you may be sure they had all inspected it with the utmost care before they took their seats.

Did they know the dead man? You may be sure at least some of them did. They were all men of some standing in their society, and haven't both the scholars and the Marlovians told us how famous Marlowe (alias, Marley) was at the time?

William Danby knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Danby was at the hub of that mechanism that had pulled Marley in before the Privy Council. Danby certainly knew Marley by sight, and Danby was in charge of the inquest. He was Coroner to the Royal Household. He was conducting the Queen's business, vested with all the responsibility that went with the dignity of his office. It was he who had the three men involved in the killing brought together in this room. There they stood beside the body: Ingram Frizer (who allegedly had killed Marley), and Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley who had both been present when Marley was killed. We will see shortly that all three have most interesting backgrounds.

Their story was relatively straightforward. About ten on the morning of May 30, the four men met at this house in Deptford Strand. They had a quiet day. They had lunch together, and afterwards walked in the garden. About six in the evening they came in from the garden and had supper. Afterwards Marley lay down on the bed, his head toward the table where the other three sit on a bench at the table, their backs to the bed, playing a game, with Frizer in the middle. An argument flared up. Marley and Frizer exchanged angry words. They quarreled about the `recknynge' (the bill). Marley jumped from the bed, snatched Frizer's dagger from its sheath at Frizer's back, and struck him twice about the head with it (the coroner's inquest said Frizer had two shallow cuts in his head). Frizer, hemmed in by Skeres and Poley, struggled with Marley for his dagger. Having seized the dagger he stabbed Marley. The point of the dagger went in just above his right eyeball to a depth of two inches. From this wound, Marley `then & there instantly died.'

There are suspicious aspects in this account. Almost everyone who has examined the case has thought so, even though all three men were cleared in the death. I will return to this, and to the three suspicious witnesses, but first, we may as well look at another question at this point. Why all this concern for the death of an obscure man killed in the insignificant little village of Deptford, during a month in which 2,000 people died from the plague in the nearby city of London? There were three reasons.

First, there was a special interest in Marley because he had been employed previously by the Privy Council as a spy.
Secondly, the crime had been committed "within the verge." That is, within twelve miles of the person of the Sovereign, Queen Elizabeth. Elizabethans took this very seriously. In the huge Presence Chamber of the palace itself two men were always on duty. They kept the implements of their office on a table before them: a cleaver, a mallet, and a red-hot poker in a small fire that was always kept burning. They were ready to spring into action at all times. If anyone struck anyone else (regardless of whether or not the Queen happened to be in the Presence Chamber) the transgressor was dragged post haste by these two men to their table. They then used the cleaver and the mallet to strike off the hand that had committed the foul deed, and applied the red-hot poker to the stub to cauterize it. This is how seriously a crime committed "within the verge" was viewed. Marley had been killed within the verge. You can be sure they all took this seriously, and had inspected the body with the utmost care before taking their seats. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as deal as a doornail.
Thirdly, the all-powerful Privy Council had issued a warrant for the arrest of the deceased. Serious charges had been brought against Marley just before he was killed. If the person couldn't be procured, the body must. It was the duty of the jury to verify that the body was that of the person for whom the warrant had been issued. The Privy Council was Elizabeth's cabinet, and wielded awesome power. Next to the Queen and her Chief Minister, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, the power of the Privy Council was absolute.

We need to know a little more about the Privy Council. The power players were the old fox, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and his son: Robert Cecil-the monster. Thomas Heneage had been a Privy Councillor since 1587. The mantle of the Cecil side of English Intelligence operations had fallen on him. Heneage was a Cecil puppet. But the Council had a major faction. This was one of Queen Elizabeth's policies. She played the factions off against each other. On February 25, 1593, she had the Earl of Essex sworn in as a member of the Privy Council. His favor with the Queen was in the ascendancy. Sir John Popham, a council member for many years, was an Essex man.

Other members included John Fortescue, who since he was a scholarly man, and a close friend of Sir Thomas Bodley (who was a close friend of Bacon's) was probably an Essex man also. In addition, there was John Puckering, and Henry Cary (Baron Hunsdon, and first cousin to the Queen).

Who were the 16 men "tried and true" who sat with Danby on the inquest? They were the local counterparts to the stereotypical "butcher and baker and candle-stick maker." There were, in fact, TWO bakers among their number. Instead of a "butcher and a candle-stick maker", however, the others included a carpenter, a local grocer, a farmer, a miller, a husband man, a wharf owner, the tenant of the Lord Admiral's official residence by the dockyard, and three gentlemen from Deptford. They were all puffed up with the importance of their office on that June day in 1593. Although they were little fish in a little pond they were doing the Queen's work. They were assisting the CORONER TO THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD. Forsooth, nothing WAS so rare as this day in June.

What had happened that brought events to this point? It all went back to the refugees. A number of Flemish Protestant refugees had, with the approval of the Privy Council, settled in London. The locals resented their presence. Various forms of protest were made. Among these were placards posted in public places with inflammatory rhetoric designed to stir up the locals against the foreign refugees. The last placard, which had been posted on the wall of the Dutch Churchyard in Broad Street, had been particularly inflammatory. It was a doggerel poem, fifty-three lines long, in four verses, each rounded off with a catch-phrase. It was signed `Tamburlaine'. Enough was enough. The Star Chamber considered the Dutch Church libel and, as Nicholl notes,

"Officers were ordered to `apprehend every person so to be suspected' and to `search in any the chambers, studies, chests or other like places, for all manner of writing and papers that may give you light for the discovery of the libellers'."

A search for the guilty parties was made. Among those arrested was Thomas Kyd. When his room was searched a theological manuscript, three pages long, written in a neat italic hand, was found. The officers read them carefully and one made the annotation:

"12 May 1593: Vile hereticall conceipts, denyinge the Deity of Jhesus Christ our Savior, found among the papers of Thos Kydd, prisoner."

Then, in a different ink, he added:

`wch he affirmeth that he had ffrom Marlowe'.

In 1549 a parish priest named John Assheton had denied the equality of Christ with God, saying that he was a man only, not God. The Archbishop of Canterbury ordered him to make a written declaration of his views. Copies were circulated. Later that year a theologican named John Proctour published a counter blast. Proctour quoted large sections of the heresy he was rebutting in his book. The three page manuscript found in Kyd's room was a transcript with a few omissions and variations of Assheton's views as quoted in Proctour's book.

Under torture Kyd still insisted He had never seen the document before. He said again and again that it had to be that other fellow, Marley, who had shared the room with him at one time and had left the document behind him. When the thumbscrews were turned a little tighter Kyd babbled a multitude of charges against Marlowe.

"It was his custom in table talk or otherwise," He said, "to jest at the divine scriptures, jibe at prayers, & strive in argument to frustrate & confute what hath been spoke or writ by prophets & such holy men."

He gave instances of the "monstruous opinions" that Marlowe held. He said,

"He would report St. John to be Our Saviour's Alexis",

in other words,

"that Christ did love him with an extraordinary love." [i.e. homosexual love].

Other evidence surfaced against Marley. Richard Cholmeley, spy and informer, gave a report in which there were allegations against Marlowe that included the following:

He saith & verily believeth that one Marlowe is able to show
More sound reasons for atheism than any divine in England is able
To give to prove divinity, & that Marlowe told him he hath read
The atheist lecture to Sr Walter Ralegh & others.

On May 18 The Privy Council issued a warrant for Marlowe's arrest. They ordered one of the Queen's Messengers, Henry Maunder:

to repair to the house of Mr Tho: Walsingham in Kent, or to any other place where he shall understand Christofer Marlow to be remaining, and by virtue hereof to apprehend and bring him to the Court in his company. And in case of need to require aid.

Maunder found his man and brought him in, for on May 20 the clerk of the Privy Council wrote:

This day Christofer Marley of London, gent, being sent for By warrant from their Lordships, hath entered his appearance Accordingly for his indemnity herein, and is commanded to give his daily attendance on their Lordships, until he shall be licensed To the contrary.

So Marley was arrested and brought in. But then he was released. This was certainly very odd. Even if he had been a spy for the Privy Council before, and even if he was on bail to remain at the Council's disposal, the fact that he was released in the face of such serious charges is most suspicious.

Three days before Marley was killed one Richard Baines handed additional evidence to the authorities. Richard Baines was previously a spy for Walsingham. Nicholl ties him to Essex. Evidently he was part of the intelligence mechanism that was moved over to Essex after Walsingham's death. Baines prepared a report which he titled,

"A note containing the opinion of one Christopher Marly, concerning his damnable judgment of religion and scorn of God's word."

In the `Note' Baines said of Marley that,

`Almost into every company he cometh, he persuades men to atheism, willing them not to be afeard of bugbears and hobgoblins.' Baines further claimed Marley had said, `all protestants are hypocritical asses'. And, `the first beginning of religion was only to keep men in awe'; that holy communion `would have been much better being administered in a tobacco pipe'.

Baines also reported of Marley the same homosexual blasphemy which Kyd reported - that Marley said, `St John the Evangelist was bedfellow to Christ, and used him as the sinners of Sodoma'. It was damning evidence.

Most probably Marley would have been arrested before the matter was finished and subjected to the interrogation and torture customary in those days just as Kyd had been. If he knew anything worth knowing it would have all been wrung out of him, slowly perhaps, but very painfully, and very thoroughly. But he was killed before this could happen. Not only was he killed, the circumstances of his death were extremely suspicious. Was there really an argument? We have only the word of a pair of professional liars, Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley. And if they argued were their backs to each other the whole time they argued? We are told Frizer was sitting pinned on the bench when the fight began and Marley was laying on the bed. And the fight. Skeres, Frizer, and Poley are sitting at a table on a bench with their back to Marley whose head is at the end toward the table. Marley gets up off the bed, whips out Frizer's dagger that is in his belt behind him, and strikes him. Frizer is sitting on a bench `with the front part of his body towards the table'. He is hemmed in by Poley and Skeres on either side of him so he can't get away. The advantage is clearly Marlowe's. But Frizer receives only a couple of minor scalp-wounds, turns around and manages to gain possession of the dagger and drive it into Marlowe's face with such force it penetrates his brain to a depth of two inches.

What were Skeres and Poley doing while this was going on? We are told, they were sitting on either side of Frizer in such a way that he `could in no wise take flight'. They are there the whole time as the two men argue. As Marlowe clambers to his feet. As the dagger is drawn. As Frizer is wounded. As the fighters wrestle for control of the knife. As Frizer gains control of the knife. They are still so tight in there that even at the very moment when Frizer makes the fatal thrust, he is still physically unable to `get away from' Marlowe. It must be remembered that all this time Frizer is off balance, the bench in front of his legs, the table against the back of his legs, unable to move to either side. It seems most improbable that he could have wrestled the dagger away from Marley in this position. And even if he had, Marley only had to move back a step, because Frizer was restrained by the bench that was in front of his legs. Frizer couldn't follow him. Skeres and Poley, no strangers to violence, are oddly motionless figures during the last moments of Marlowe's life. They don't even step aside so they are free of the ends of the bench, thus allowing Frizer to `get away from' Marley. They don't try to restrain the fighters. They are close enough to impede, but not to intervene.

What actually happened must have been very different from the account. Marlowe was not the aggressor, but Frizer. Probably the point that Marley was lying on the bed his head toward the table was significant. All three men move away from the table toward Marlowe. Frizer attacks Marlowe. The shallow slashes on Frizer's head were not inflicted by a man standing over him, but by a victim flailing and lunging for his life. Skeres and Poley then pinion Marley so he can't get away. Frizer plunges the dagger into his eye. The killing of Christopher Marlowe was not self-defense but murder.

To put the whole matter in context we need to take a closer look at the three men involved in Marley's death. Ingram Frizer was in the service of Thomas Walsingham of Chislehurst, a young cousin of the late great spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. This same Thomas Walsingham was Marlowe's `master', or patron, at this time. Marlowe was living with him at Scadbury. Frizer had a somewhat shady background. He was later involved in underhanded dealings as a loan-shark when a bill of complaint was lodged against him in the Chancery court by Drew Woodleff of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. There is evidence that he also was a spy. He was in the service of Thomas Walsingham for a considerable period, and Thomas worked as a control of a number of spies employed by Francis Walsingham.

Nicholas Skeres, accomplice to Frizer in the episode that caused the bill of complaint to be lodged against him, was even more than Frizer down at the shady end of the same world. Skeres name shows up on a list compiled by William Fleetwood in July 1585 of `a number of masterless men & cutpurses, whose practice is to rob gentlemen's chambers and artificers' shops in and about London'. Skeres also shows up as a government plant in the `Babington plot'. By 1589 he was in Essex's service, doing spy work for which he received official payment under a warrant signed by Sir Francis Walsingham. In the course of the evidence he gave concerning his dealing with Wolfall the skinner, he describes the Earl of Essex as his `Lord and Master'.

Of the three men present at the stabbing of Marlowe, Robert Poley is the most complex, and the most sinister. His career as a spy went back over two decades. It had taken him to many countries as well as into the Tower, and the Marshalsea. He was notorious among Catholic as a double-dealer, informer, agent provocateur, and - according to some accusations - poisoner. He has been called `the very genius of the Elizabethan underworld'. On the day of Marlowe's death Poley had recently returned from one of his confidential missions to the Netherlands. Two weeks later, on June 12, 1593, he received payment of 30 pounds for this work, on a warrant signed by Sir Thomas Heneage. Poley was Robert Cecil's man.

We end with a singular fact. If it was murder all three men had to be in on it together. Yet we are dealing with three separate factions. Nicholas Skeres worked for the Earl of Essex. Robert Poley worked for Sir Robert Cecil. And Ingram Frizer was one of Thomas Walsingham's men. If it was murder all three factions must have had a reason for wanting Marlowe dead. If we are to find the reason we must determine why each of these three would want Marley dead. The danger must have been that under torture information could have been extracted from Marley that was harmful to all three. If we can deduce what this was, then we can determine why Marley was killed.

In "The Reckoning" Charles Nicholl[11] has made a good case for the supposition that the entire incident arose from a scheme cooked up by the Earl of Essex to frame Sir Walter Ralegh. I don't have space to rehash that evidence here. Certainly Essex hated Ralegh and would do anything he could to do damage to him. There is considerable evidence for this. And there is evidence, as Nicholl demonstrated, that the whole thing was a `frame' directed at Ralegh. But this is not the whole story. It doesn't explain all the facts, especially why the Essex, Cecil, and Walsingham men were all working together at the end.

The Thomas Walsingham's side of the matter is easiest to figure. In Baines' Note he alleged Marley was homosexual and Marley had made the statement,

"That all they that loved not Tobacco and boys were fools."

Many scholars have suspected a closer relationship between Walsingham and Marlowe than patron-poet. They allege a homosexual relationship. This ties in with Francis Meres statement that

`Marlow was stabbed to death by a bawdy serving man, a rival of his in his lewd [homosexual] love.'

Presumably the third member of the triangle was Thomas Walsingham. On the very next day after his release from prison Frizer was once more received back into Walsingham's employment, and remained with him until the end of his days. If this was the actual state of things, Walsingham's compliance in his murder is very understandable. Under torture Marley would have told all. And the sentence for sodomy back then was very severe. In France anyone convicted was condemned to death by `le bucher'[fire], and there is no dearth of accounts of those `brule tout vif' [burned alive] for the crime. No doubt, the transgression carried a death sentence in England also.

This brings us to Robert Cecil. Nicholl speculates Cecil was the one who got Marley released on bail when he was arrested and brought in before the Privy Council. Cecil was probably the only one who had that kind of clout. Nicholl also speculates that the presence of the Cecil man at the Marley killing indicates Marley was in possession of some information that could have caused harm to Cecil. Did he know that Cecil had arranged things so he would come out smelling like a rose if Spain conquered England? That Cecil was, in fact, on the payroll of Spain? Or was Marley just a security risk? Did he have compromising knowledge about the dealings of the Cecil spy network. In either case a monster such as Cecil would not scruple at murder in order to remove the problem.

This brings us to Essex. Essex hated Ralegh. And Robert Cecil, who could play Essex like a violin, continually fanned the flames. I have no doubt the attempted coup that brought about Essex's execution was a result of the manipulation of Cecil. Essex had been worked to an almost hysterical state by the tales Cecil had told him of Ralegh's plots against him. Cecil destroyed Essex, and a few years later (I have recounted the story in "Shakespeare's Other Side of Midnight") destroyed Ralegh as well. I think Essex was acting on his own in the Marlowe incident when he started out on his plot to frame Ralegh. But then it suddenly dawned on him that he had recklessly gotten himself into a situation where information might develop that was damaging to him. At this point Robert Cecil may have joined forces with him.

There is, of course, another question behind all this. If the two factions on the Privy Council didn't want Marley pulled in for questioning why not just stop the thing in its tracks? Surely they had the power? The answer to this is that the Queen was also involved. As in the game of chess, so in Elizabethan England, the most powerful piece on the board was the Queen. No doubt, by now she had wind of the fact that something fishy was going, and had demanded that Marley be brought in for interrogation and all that entailed.

The Queen did not trust her councillors. Naive historians speak of her trusted senior minister, William Cecil. They are misinformed. At one time Cecil had been so disgusted by his stalled career he was on the verge of throwing the whole thing up. Then Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, made a fatal miscalculation. Elizabeth was attracted to Dudley with that passion woman often conceive for unprincipled types. Seemingly having learned nothing from almost getting herself killed by dallying with Thomas Seymour, she began displaying her affection openly for Leicester. Leicester saw the throne only a step away. He was certain he could marry her and have the crown. It may well have been. Except for one small problem. Leicester was already married to Amy Robsart. But the Dudleys never let a little thing like murders (or treason) stand in the way of their overweening ambition, and reckless pursuit of power. Leicester killed Amy. [It was not his first murder. For the real skinny on Leicester read "Leycesters Common-wealth", an anonymous underground publication that appeared in London in June of 1585]. The murder was staged to appear as if Amy had fallen down the stairs. The public wasn't buying it. They knew she had been killed because she stood in the way of the Queen's illicit love affair. The swell of public opinion grew. Elizabeth came closer to losing her throne, and her head, at this time, than in any other time in her entire 40- year monarchy. William Cecil, who had spies everywhere, learned of the murder. He managed the very perilous tightrope act of engineering her extrication from her difficulty and blackmailing her into granting him the top post in her cabinet simultaneously. His career soared. It was soon after this that Elizabeth began her "hey look at me, I'm a virgin!' routine. (Yeah right, you and Madonna!). It is said the last word on her lips as she lay dying was Leicester's name, but you may be sure she kept Leicester at arm's length for the remainder of her reign.

The Marlovians theorize the whole thing about the death of Marlowe was a conspiracy. That he did not die that day, but hopped a ship in Deptford and departed for parts unknown. They say it is significant the alleged "death" took place in Deptford where ships were so convenient. They may well be right that it was significant that his death took place in Deptford where ships were so convenient. But the reason was probably because the initial idea of the men who killed him was to convince him to make his escape to the continent before he could be pulled in and `spill the beans' that would bring harm to the people who employed them. When this didn't work they killed him after spending eight hours that day talking, and arguing with Marley. Because the Marlovians are convinced that Marlowe wrote the Shakespeare plays they think his death must have been faked. However, there are insurmountable difficulties with their theory that Marley was not killed that day.

In the first place Mrs. Eleanor Bull of Deptford, owner of the house where the death took place, would have had to be in on the conspiracy. Does any one seriously think they could have lugged a dead body into the house without her knowledge? Eleanor Bull was a woman of substance. She was widow of a local official, and was related to Blanche Parry, Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, and long time confidante of Queen Elizabeth. She was not at all a person likely to be a part of such a shady conspiracy.

Also William Danby, coroner to the Royal Household would have had to be part of the conspiracy also. This seems even less likely. And some of the jury must have been familiar with Marley by sight. So they must have been part of the conspiracy also. The likelihood dwindles all the time. A final bit of information that has a possible bearing on the case is the dedication of the publisher Edward Blount five years later to the first edition of Hero and Leander. He wrote:

"We think not ourselves discharged of the duty we owe to our friend when he have brought the breathless body to the earth. For albeit the eye there taketh his ever-farewell of that beloved object, yet the impression of the man that hath been dear unto us, living an afterlife in our memory, there putteth us in mind of farther obsequies due unto the deceased."

This has all the appearance of being an actual memory shared. Apparently, Blount, and others were present to take an `ever-farewell' of Marlowe? Were they also in on the conspiracy? It is a far, far better thing we do to let poor Marley (shady character though he may have been) rest in peace, and also lay the conspiracy theory to rest with him. As one of our late senate leaders was wont to say, "That dog wont hunt!"

In "Who Wrote Shakespeare?" John Michell says[10],

"Christopher Marlowe wrote wholly or in part several of the Shakespeare plays. This is not just an assertion by Marlovian theorists, but a statement made in various ways by many of the most eminent and orthodox Shakespearean scholars."

And he goes on to add,

"The debate about Marlowe's hand in Shakespeare has been going on since the eighteenth century, when Edmond Malone acknowledged him as the author of Titus Andronicus. This was widely accepted. For many years it was the fashion among critics to ascribe much or most of Shakespeare's early writings to Christopher Marlowe. Great Shakespearians, Hazlitt, Fleay, Chalmers, Dyce, Verity, Thorndike, Jane Lee, Algernon Swinburne and many others, down to the supremely orthodox Sir Sidney Lee, identified Marlowe as solely, principally, or partly responsible for Titus Andronicus, Richard II, Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI."

Dr. Thomas Mendenhall, a distinguished physicist who became President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, discovered additional evidence that the Shakespeare works and the Marlowe works were written by the same person. He worked out a relatively simplistic method of `finger-printing' authors of disputed works.

According to Mendenhall every writer consistently and unconsciously followed a definite pattern denoted by the frequency of word lengths in his writing. Mendenhall's theory was that in any two substantial samples of anyone's writing there is the same pattern of relative word-lengths: so many two-letter, three-letter, four-letter words per thousand in each sample.[10][6]

An enthusiastic Baconian commissioned him to use the method on the Bacon- Shakespeare controversy. However, the Baconian came away disappointed. A large sample from the works of Bacon compared poorly with the sample from the works of Shakespeare. But when Mendenhall turned to Christopher Marlowe and compared his writings to Shakespeare what he found astonished him. He had never seen anything like it before. Marlowe's word-length frequencies were an exact match with Shakespeare's. It was as rare as finding two people with identical fingerprints!

What was up with the Mendenhall Shakespeare-Bacon comparison? An obvious point was that since prose was compared to poetry, it was a comparison of apples and oranges. But there is another, even more significant point. Because Francis Bacon was like a superman he transcended our conceptions of human capability. In his book, "Francis Bacon, His Career and Thought" Fulton Anderson says certainly the Shakespeare works are not in Bacon's usual style. But we must remember, he adds, Bacon could write in many different styles at will. Anderson notes that when trying to bring Essex back into Elizabeth's favor Bacon had successfully composed feigned correspondence supposedly written by Essex and by Bacon's brother Anthony in which he imitated the styles of each perfectly. He even wrote letters to Elizabeth, says Anderson, at the bidding of Essex in exact imitation of the Earl. And when James succeeded to the throne after the death of Elizabeth, Bacon addressed a letter to James in exact imitation of the ponderous style of James.

In his, "Shakespeare Studies in Baconian Light" Robert Theobald notes the author of the Marlowe and Shakespeare works could use different writing styles at will. Theobald says that are at least four different writing styles in the Marlowe works and that although the author of the Shakespeare works moved away from the Marlowe style in his later writings he `was quite capable of repeating it if the dramatic opportunity presented itself'. Theobald says there is nothing more characteristic of Marlowe than Hamlet's ranting speech when he leaps into Ophelia' grave, and quotes a number of other occasions in Shakespeare's mature writings when the authors pulls out the old Marlowe style like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

Carl Jung, once compared the consciousness of man in relation to the remainder of his psyche (the unconscious) to a small, highlighted dot, on the surface of a sphere. In superman the dot expands to include the entire sphere. Mendenhall's method applied to an unconscious pattern. In Bacon's case everything was conscious. His control was so absolute he could change styles at will. He not only changed his writing style at will, he changed his handwriting at will. His biographers note an abrupt and complete change in his handwriting at a particular time in his life. In addition to his handwriting and writing style, he could mimic the speech and the character of any person at will. One of his earliest biographers says,

"In conversation, he could assume the most differing characters, and speak the language proper to each, with a facility that was perfectly natural."[8]

This explains Shakespeare's marvelous ability to portray the most varying characters. Margeret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, expressed the consensus of the observation of this characteristic in a letter in 1664:

"Shakespeare did not want wit, to express to the life all sorts of persons, of what quality, profession, degree, breeding, or birth whatsoever; nor did he want wit to express the divers, and different humors, or natures, or several passions in mankind."

While researching "The Story That the Sonnets Tell" (1995) in Thomas Birch's Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, A.D. Wraight came across references to a certain Monsieur Le Doux. Wraight thought Le Doux was an agent employed by the Earl of Essex in 1595/96, and as there was also mention of an English agent using the name Monsieur La Faye, Wraight wondered if Le Doux might not be an Englishman also.

Could it be? Was it Possible that this Le Doux was none other than Christopher Marlowe, who had gone underground after his death was faked in 1593, and had now resurfaced as Monsieur Le Doux? Peter Farey picked up on the revelation and ran with it like there was no tomorrow. Then he suddenly did a 180-degree turn. In order to see why this about face, we need to take closer look at the case.

In her book, "Francis Bacon and His Secret Society" that meticulous researcher, Constance Pott said:

"Amongst the many proofs of the intense admiration and affection, esteem and reverence, which Francis Bacon inspired in those who were personally intimate with him, none are more satisfactory than those contained in the voluminous, but still unpublished, correspondence of Anthony Bacon, in the library at Lambeth Palace. Here we find him spoken of as "Monsieur le Doux," and "Signor Dolce," his extreme kindness, sweetness of disposition and heavenly mindedness being continual subjects of comment. His followers and disciples vow fidelity to him from simple love of him and his cause." [12]

While Peter Farey was on his "Monsieur le Doux" binge he searched the records at Lambeth Palace and came across a "coffre" or trunk containing what were apparently the papers of Monsieur le Doux. He enthusiastically wrote articles on his web site (http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/) in which he listed the contents of the trunk. But Farey retracted his position, and backed out of the situation faster than a skunk backing out of a perfume factory. In a subsequent article on his website entitled "LE DOUX's COFFRE, BUT WHOSE PAPERS?" Farey said,

"In `The Story that the Sonnets Tell' A.D. Wraight first suggested that a Monsieur Le Doux, mentioned in the Bacon Papers at Lambeth Palace Library, might be a surviving Christopher Marlowe (Wraight, 1994. p.375). Subsequent research certainly seemed to confirm this possibility. I have myself supported this idea for so long that it came as a bit of a shock to me to realize that it might not be true after all."

What exactly, was it that sent Farey, devote Marlovian that he was, scurrying for cover? Not altogether unlike the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans kid who became an `angel unawares', Farey had become a `Baconian unawares'. The fact was the whole `kit and kaboodle' of material in the trunk pointed toward Francis Bacon as being the owner, and even more specifically to Francis Bacon as author of the Marlowe works. When Farey realized this he did his 180-degree turn. In his initial enthusiasm he had failed to see the truth. There were copies of various pieces by Francis Bacon - including a copy of his Essayes dedicated to Anthony, a year before they were actually published in the trunk.

Francis Bacon also collected proverbs, phrases and sayings, and there was a lot of this kind of thing in the trunk. This owner of the material in the trunk was also a polymath as was Bacon. The fifty-five books in the trunk were almost equally divided into Latin, French, Italian and Spanish. There were only two English pieces (a Bible and a French primer), in addition to the writings by Francis Bacon that were in English. There were biblical works, dictionaries covering at least eight different languages, medicine, history, prose, verse and plays. The owner was a fluent writer. There were 'memories', discourses, tracts and treatises, most of them clearly by him. But there was also in the trunk a lot of material that was relevant to Marlowe's plays. Among these books were the following:

Baptista Egnatius's De Origine Turcarum Libellus (A little book on the origins of the Turks), cited by Bakeless as a source for both of Marlowe's Tamburlaine plays.

Translations (by Leunclavius) of two parts of the Annals of the Turks (also cited by Bakeless), Tamburlaine again, but of course The Jew of Malta also had Turkish history as its backdrop.

Two books concerning George Scanderbeg, another warrior battling the Turks, and the subject of a (now lost) play thought by some to have been an early work by Marlowe.

A history of "The Four Empires" by Johannes Sleidanus. These included the Babylonian and Persian Empires - again Tamburlaine and Scanderbeg territory. The plays of Terence, in the original Latin, containing a quotation employed by Marlowe in Doctor Faustus.

So the "Le Doux Trunk Affair" was really a valuable bit of additional evidence for the Baconian-Marlowe theory. The Folger Guide to Shakespeare says[20] (concerning the Taming of The Shrew)

"Shakespeare's immediate source may have been older play, The Taming of a Shew, which was printed in 1594."

This same book says,

"The evidence as to the play's composition is confused by references to a play called The Taming of a Shrew, which may be either the source of Shakespeare's play or a bad quarto."

In the play, The Taming of a Shrew, the connection with Marlowe is most striking. I quote only two instances:[2]

Eternal heaven sooner be dissolved,
And all that pierceth Phoebus' silver eye,
Before such hap befall to Pollidor.

-Taming of a Shrew, III,6.

Eternal Heaven sooner be dissolv'd,
And all that pierceth Phoebus' silver eye,
Before such hap fall to Zenocrate.

-Tamburlaine, III,6.

Thou shalt have garments wrought of Median silk,
Enchas't with precious Jewels fetcht from far.

-Taming of a Shrew, III,2.

Thy garments shall be made of Median silk,
Enchas't with precious jewels of mine own.

-Tamburlaine, I,2.

In "Shakespeare Studies in Baconian Light" Theobald fills 34 pages with parallels between passages in the Marlowe works and the Shakespeare works.[15] Following is a few of these:

Then from the navel to the throat at once
He ripp'd old Priam.

-Dido,II.ii.255

And ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him
Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,
And fix'd his head upon the battlements.

-Macbeth,I.ii.21

I'll flatter these, and make them live in hope.

-Edward II,I,I,43

Cozening hope! He is a flatterer.

-Richard II,II,ii,69

I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits,
Musician, that with touching of a string,
May draw the pliant king which way I please;
I'll have Italian mosques by night, &c.

-Edward II,I,i.52-73

His ear.is stopped with other flattering sounds:
Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound,
The open ear of youth doth always listen.
Report of fashions in proud Italy.

-Richard II,II,I,17-23

With hair that gilds the water as it glides.

Edward II,I,i.63

Spread o'er the silver wave thy golden hair.

-Comedy of Errors, III,ii.48

This sword of mine that should offend your foes,
Shall sleep within the scabbard at thy need;

-Edward II,I,i.86

Steel! If thou turn the edge.'ere thou sleep in thy sheath,

-2 Henry VI,IV.x.61

How now! Why droops the Earl?

Edward II,I,ii,9

Why droops my Lord like over ripen'd corn?

-2 Henry VI,I,ii

Ignoble Vassal! That like Phaethon,
Aspir'st unto the guidance of the sun.

-Edward II,I,iv.16

Phaethon!.Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car?

-Two Gentlemen of Verona,III,I,153

To sum the matter up, I have proven Bacon wrote the Shakespeare works. The evidence indicates Marlowe wrote the Shakespeare works. We know in elementary logic that if A is equal to C; and B is equal to C; then A is equal to B. The fact is that by proving Marlowe wrote the Shakespeare works, the Marlovians prove that Bacon wrote the Marlowe works. Way to go Marlovians! It is a little complicated, but I have confidence you will sort it all out. Marlowe is one of those apparently multiple faces in the `wilderness of mirrors' that becomes one if you look at it close enough. AND THAT ONE FACE IS FRANCIS BACON!

References

[1]Bakeless, John - Christopher Marlowe - The Man in His Time Washington Square Press, inc. - 1964
[2]Baxter, James Phinney - The Greatest of Literary Problems Houghton Mifflin Co.- 1915

[3]Deacon, Richard - John Dee - Frederick Muller Ltd. - 1968

[4]Dee, John - The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - AMS Press - 1968

[5]Du Maurier, Daphne - Golden Lads - Doubleday & Company - 1975

[6]Gibson, H.N. - The Shakespeare Claimnants - Barnes & Noble, Inc. - 1971

[7]Harman, Edward George - Edmund Spenser and The Impersonations of Francis BaconConstable and Company - 1914

[8]Mallet, Mr. D. - The Life of Francis Bacon - St. Clements Church - MDCCXL

[9]Mathew, Arnold Harris - The Life of Sir Tobie Matthew - Elkin Mathew - MCMVII

[10]Michell, John - Who Wrote Shakespeare? - Thames and Hudson Ltd - 1996

[11]Nicholl, Charles - The Reckoning - The Murder of Christopher Marlowe Harcourt Brace & Company - 1972

[12]Pott, Mrs. Henry - Francis Bacon and his Secret Society - AMS PRESS INC - 1975

[13]Proper, Ida Sedgwick - Our Elusive Willy - Dirigo Editions - 1953

[14]Smedley, William T. - The Mystery of Francis Bacon Kessinger Publishing Company

[15]Theobald, Robert M. - Shakespeare Studies in Baconian Light John Howard - 1901

[16]Tittler, Robert - Nicholas Bacon The Making of a Tudor Statesman Jonathan Cape Ltd - 1976

[17]Williamson, Hugh Ross - Kind Kit - Michael Joseph LTD - 1972

[18]Woodward, Parker - TUDOR PROBLEMS - Gay and Hancock, LTD - 1912

[19]Wraight, A.D. - In Search of Christopher Marlowe-Vanguard Press, inc. - 1965

[20]Wright, Louis B. - THE FOLGER GUIDE TO SHAKESPEARE - Washington Square Press - 1973

[21]Yates, Frances A. - The Rosicrucian Enlightenment - Routledge & Kegan Paul -1972

SirBacon.org - Sir Francis Bacon's New Advancement of Learning