Ingram Frizer

Ingram Frizer ( Frezer or Frysar ), († 1627 in Eltham ) became known as the murderer of the playwright Christopher Marlowe on the evening of May 30, 1593.

Little is known about his life. He was an employee of Thomas Walsingham, the young cousin of Queen Elizabeth's secret service chief Sir Francis Walsingham . Both Francis and Thomas Walsingham were heavily involved in intelligence activities; and it seems likely that Frizer was also an agent as an employee of Thomas Walsingham. He was also on record because he was involved with Thomas Walsingham and Nicholas Skeres in the deception of a "Drew Woodleff" for his inheritance.

Frizer was in the service of Thomas Walsingham several years before his murder of Marlowe. On May 18, 1593, Marlowe was released on May 18, 1593 before the throne council , which he followed on May 20, 1593, on account of previous threatening posters and an impending charge of heresy, atheism and homosexuality . 10 days later he had disappeared permanently from the scene, his disappearance or his death developed immediately during a longer plague epidemic in London as well as over centuries out of ignorance ( "killed in a drunken fight" , "stabd to death by a bawdy serving man, a rival of his in his lewde love ”, etc.) rather grotesque assumptions. It was not until Leslie Hotson discovered the Coroners Report in Latin in the British State Archives in 1925 that the circumstances surrounding Marlowe's death became problematic again.

According to this report, Ingram Frizer spent a day in Deptford with Robert Poley , "Nicholas Skeres" and Christopher Marlowe in the garden and house of the widow Eleanor Bull, who was related to Lord Burghley . Due to a dispute over the bill ("the reckyninge") , Frizer grabbed Marlowe's dagger in self-defense and immediately fatally hit him over the right eyebrow. The Queen's Coroner of the Queen's Household, Coroner of the Queen's Household, reported to the Queen. On June 28, 1593, four weeks after “that” capital crime, Frizer received absolute “pardon” from the Queen in an astonishingly short time.

A few years later, after James I of England had ascended the throne, Frizer received various benefices from the crown through the mediation of Audrey Walsingham (Thomas Walsingham's wife and friend of Queen Anne of Denmark , the wife of King James I of England). Frizer moved to an estate in Eltham , Kent , where he lived until his death.

swell

• K. Stahlin Sir Francis Walsingham and his time, Vol.I, Heidelberg 1908
• Leslie Hotson The Death of Christopher Marlowe, The Modern Language Review 1926
• Irving Ribner, Marlowe and the Critics, The Tulane Drama Review, 1964
• http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/

Bibliography and Notes

1. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated September 8, 2001 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ The first contemporary written reference to Marlowe's death came in 1597 from Thomas Beard, who reported: “It so fell out, that in London streets as he purposed to stab one whome hee ought a grudge unto with his dagger, the other party perceiving so avoided the stroke, that withall catching hold of his wrest, he stabbed his owne dagger into his owne head, in such sort, that notwithstanding all the meanes of surgerie that could be wrought, hee shortly after died thereof. "
3. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ http://members.aol.com/marlovian/inquest/engtrans.htm ( Memento from March 19, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from February 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.