The original discoverer of the records of Marlowe was a 20's scholar named Leslie Hotson. The Reckoning (1992) by Charles Nicholl shows fairly conclusively that Marlowe was also a spy for Sir Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush, for those of you who have seen Elizabeth) and others. Marlowe was involved in various plots, mostly to undermine the Catholic intrigues and assassination plots against Elizabeth. He was arrested from time to time, most notably for forgery in the Netherlands just before he was killed. It is fairly clear that the murder was a setup, and that the only witnesses were the three other spies in the room. It was part of a complex struggle between Lord Essex's men and Raleigh. The Shakespearean connection if any, seems to have something to do with the fact that Lord Strange was one of the people the Catholics were hoping might come forward in the struggle over the succession to Elizabeth (before it went to James of Scotland). What makes this interesting is the recent suggestion that Shakespeare was a tutor or player in the late 1580's in Lancashire, which was a hotbed of Catholics. And there have been persistent rumours that Shakespeare was a hidden Catholic (his mother was a Catholic). One of Marlowe's jobs seems to have been to infiltrate this kind of group -- why he was working for Lord Strange, why he was a very convenient member of Raleigh's circle, and so on.

And so on...

Yours, Peter T.