Online Library of Liberty: The Works of Christopher Marlowe vol. 1 Portable Library of Liberty

more will be published.
Online Library of Liberty: The Works of Christopher Marlowe vol. 1
PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
8
http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1687

---

[Back to Table of Contents]
INTRODUCTION
Marlowe was educated at the King's School, Canterbury. His name does not occur in
the Treasurer's Accounts for 1575-6 and 1576-7; and the register for 1577-8 is lost. In
the accounts for the first quarter of the financial year 1578-9 (namely, from
Michaelmas to Christmas 1578) we find no mention of him, but in the accounts for
the three following quarters (January to Michaelmas 1579) he is reported to have
received his exhibition of £i per quarter. For 1579-80 the record is missing.
1
On 17th March 1580-1, Marlowe matriculated at Cambridge as Pensioner of Benet
College (now Corpus Christi). The only mention of him in the Books of the College is
an entry of his admission, and he is there called simply “Marlin”without the Christian
name. It appears to have been a rule at Benet College to record the Christian name
along with the surname only in the case of scholars; hence the absence of the
Christian name is held to show that Marlowe was not elected to one of the two
scholarships which had recently been founded by Archbishop Parker at Benet College
for the benefit of boys educated at the King's School, Canterbury. Cunningham urges
that it is “less unlikely that a hurried and quasi informal entry has been made in the
books than that a boy of Marlowe's industry and precocity of intellect should have
gone from that particular school to that particular college on any footing than that of a
foundation scholar.” The absence of Marlowe's Christian name from the College
Books is a tangible piece of evidence, but there is nothing whatever to show that
Marlowe was distinguished for industry at school. His classical attainments at the
beginning of his literary career appear not to have been considerable. In his translation
of Ovid's Amores, which is by no means a difficult book, he misses the sense in
passages which could be construed to-day with ease by any fourth-form boy. After
making all allowance for the inaccuracy of ordinary scholarship vn Marlowe's day, it
may be safely said that the poet could not have earned much distinction at Cambridge
for sound classical knowledge. The probability is that, both at school and college, he
read eagerly but not accurately. His fiery spirit, “still climbing after knowledge
infinite,” would ill brook to be fettered by the gyves and shackles of an academical
training. But whether he held a scholarship or not, he was content to submit so far to
the ordinary routine (less irksome then than now) as to secure his Bachelor's Degree
in 1583 and proceed Master of Arts in 1587.
Dyce puts the question, Who defrayed the expenses of his Academical course if he
had no scholarship? It is not improbable that he may have gone to Cambridge at the
expense of some patron; and Dyce ventures to suggest that the patron was Sir Roger
Manwood, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, who had a mansion at St. Stephen's, near
Canterbury. On the back of the title-page of a copy of Hero and Leander, ed. 1629,
Collier found a manuscript Latin epitaph on this gentleman (who died in December
1592), subscribed with Marlowe's name. The epitaph has every appearance of being
genuine;
1
and as Sir Roger Manwood was distinguished for his munificence, it is not
at all unlikely that at some time or other he had made Marlowe the recipient of his
bounty. But I must leave the reader to accept or reject Dyce's theory as he pleases.
Online Library of Liberty: The Works of Christopher Marlowe vol. 1
PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
9
http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1687

---

We have now to consider how Marlowe was engaged after taking his bachelor's
degree in 1583. The most plausible view is that of Cunningham, who suggests that the
poet trailed a pike in the Low Countries. He points out with some force that
Marlowe's “familiarity with military terms, and his fondness for using them are most
remarkable.” But we must beware of laying too much stress on this argument; for all
the Elizabethan dramatists possessed in large measure the faculty, for which
Shakespeare was supremely distinguished, of assimilating technical knowledge of
every kind. Phillips, who was followed by Antony-a-Wood and Tanner, states in his