Marlowe's Childhood

Parents

Christopher Marlowe's parents, John and Katherine (née Arthur), both hailed from Kent, although neither from Canterbury. The pair nevertheless married there at the church of St George the Martyr in 1561, the register recording:

The 22th of May were maried John Marlowe and Catherine Arthur 1

From around this time the newly-weds were living in a house in St George's parish, purportedly the one on the corner of St George's Street and St George's Lane. Their first eight children were all baptised at that same church between 1562 and 1573. John had his own shoemaker's shop by 1564/5,2 quite possibly within the same property.

John Marlowe was born in the village of Ospringe, very close to Faversham, some nine miles west of Canterbury. There is conflicting evidence regarding his age, legal documents from later in his life putting his date of birth variously between 1536 and 1543. The earliest date seems the more likely,3 the same year incidentally that Faversham Abbey was granted to Sir Thomas Culpepper as part of Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. The earlier birth date would make John about 25 years old when he married Katherine.

Marlowe's father was likely to have still been living locally at the time of Thomas Arden's murder in Faversham, instigated by his wife Alice in 1551. This was the notorious case chronicled by Raphael Holinshed,4 and which would provide the plot and characters for the anonymous play Arden of Faversham written approximately forty years after the event.5 The geographical proximity has led some to suggest Christopher Marlowe as the play's author but this seems unlikely.

Katherine was born and raised in the port of Dover on the south coast of Kent, some 18 miles from Canterbury. Her father William was not recorded as having a trade when he died in 1575,6 suggesting the family was far from wealthy, and possibly explaining why Katherine's wedding unusually did not take place in the bride's native town. Katherine's brother Thomas, born in Dover about 1545, was also to be found in Canterbury by 1585 when he was a witness to Katherine Benchkin's will along with John and Christopher Marlowe.

John and Katherine Marlowe went on to have nine children, six of whom survived into adulthood, during a marriage that would last nearly 44 years until death did them part in 1605. Their ninth and last child Thomas was baptised in 1576 at St. Andrew's Church,7 a little further west from St George's on the High Street, suggesting the family may have moved house by this time. Their daughter Jane was married at this same church in 1582, by which time Christopher had left for Cambridge. In 1584 the Marlowes became tenants at a property in St Andrew's parish owned by Alderman Nutt, a lawyer and recent mayor of Canterbury, who took John Marlowe to court for non-payment of rent a year later.8

By the 1590's the Marlowes were to be found in the parish of St Mary Breadman, a little further west again. Their daughters Margaret (1590), Anne (1593) and Dorothy (1594) were all married in this parish church.10 John Marlowe was again taken to court in 1594 by his landlord, another lawyer Alexander Norwood, who was also trying to evict them from his property in that parish. That same year John Marlowe leased a property in Mercery Lane.11

Christopher Marlowe's parents lived a further twelve years after his own death in Deptford. His father John died first at the probable age of 68 or 69, making his will on 23 January 1605 and being buried in St. George's churchyard two days later:

John Marloe clarke of St: Maries was buried the 25th of January.12

John instructed in his will for "my body to be buried in the churchyeard of the parish of St George within Canterbury. As touching my temporall goods my debts & funeralls dischardged & paid I give and bequeath wholy to my wyfe, Katherine whome I make my sole executrix".13 For all his apparent financial difficulties, an inventory of John Marlowe's goods following his death provided evidence of at least a modestly comfortable life in a property comprising a "little parlour nexte the streete, halle, kitchen, seller, greate chamber and little chamber". The items listed in the latter included "a bible", valued at 6 shillings.14

Katherine Marlowe outlived her husband by less than two months. Her will is dated 17 March 1605 and she too was buried two days later. Her will asked for "my bodye to be buryed in ye Churcheyarde of St Georges in Canterburye neare where as my husbande John Marlowe was buryed",16 but alas that does not seem to have happened for her burial is recorded in the register at All Saints Church:

Catheren Marlowe was buryed the xviiii daie of Marche [1605] anno predicto 17

On Katherine's death, she was survived by her three daughters Margaret, Anne and Dorothy to whom she bequeathed a range of household items, clothes and money in her will. There is no mention of the Marlowes' youngest son Thomas in Katherine's will (he would have been a month shy of his 29th birthday), nor has any record of his death been found.