The Murder of Christopher Marlowe by Edward de Vere
in
As You Like It:
I accuse Edward de Vere, with the dagger, in the forest.
(Okay, it was a secret state-sanctioned execution, but murder stories sell!)
I think I have solved a 433-year old cold Elizabethan murder case thanks to a confession left by Edward de Vere. Information concealed in Shakespeare’s play As You Like It conceals information about the poet Christopher Marlowe and the circumstances of his death.
I. Introduction:
In my first book (published on September 30, 2014) and in blog posts posted in 2015, I put forward the idea that Edward de Vere murdered Christopher Marlowe. This idea relied on possible hidden messages in Shakespeare’s play As You Like It that I believed I had found. At the time, I were just starting to develop my methods, and I was probably somewhat over-enthusiastic with my results. Not surprisingly, the response I received was of general rejection, bordering on flabbergasted bemusement, of the idea that Edward de Vere could have murdered Christopher Marlowe. After reconsidering the posts, I decided to remove them from the public-facing part of my blog as I developed my methods. My hope was to return to the play As You Like It at some point in the future with better methods. Of course, the Internet is seemingly forever, and the posts were still available somewhere on The Wayback Machine, for the continued schadenfreude of my detractors.
Recently, I began using etymology to discover hidden messages in Shakespeare. This method is more promising than some of the methods I used years ago in the analysis of As You Like It, so I decided to re-examine the play to determine if I could uncover evidence that might support or refute my previous supposition that Edward de Vere murdered Marlowe.
Although I am in the early stages of analysis, I can report some promising results that indicate that Edward de Vere was involved in the murder of Marlowe and that he was probably the murderer. You can weigh the evidence and judge for yourself.
I have only analyzed a faction of the text of As You Like It, so my analysis is incomplete. However, this paper contains enough information to name Edward de Vere as the murderer of Christopher Marlowe.
This paper is divided into three parts: The Introduction, The Background Facts of Christopher Marlowe’s Death, and An Analysis of As You Like It. The analysis, which is divided into several sections, examines hidden messages about Marlowe and his death. The excerpts from the play were selected to make the case that the play has hidden messages referring to Marlowe and to show the real facts of his death. The play is a maze of sorts, so the paper has to follow a somewhat meandering path. The play is set in France, so the analysis will rely primarily on etymologies of the French translations of key English words. The sections on Doctor Faustus and the character Sir Oliver Mar-text rely primarily on etymologies of Latin words because characters like Faustus and Mar-text used the scholarly language of Latin.
This paper relies, in part, on the work of the late Alexander Waugh. Mr. Waugh discovered that in the works of Shakespeare the number 1740 is repeatedly encoded. Furthermore, the numbers 17, 40, 57 (17 + 40 = 57), and 1740 are associated with Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. See Mr. Waugh's YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@alexanderwaugh7036; and the video "The Incalculable Genius of John Dee" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-PWR7-0Hp4&t=4s.
In this paper, I use the etymology of words to find hidden meanings. This method has been used for years by Michael and Spencer Stepniewski. I stumbled upon their method independently, sort of like Newton's and Leibnitz's independent development of calculus. I only recently learned of Michael and Spencer Stepniewski's work after listening to an episode of the podcast of Don't Quill The Messenger entitled The Rape of Princess Elizabeth.1
Michael and Spencer Stepniewski's website can be found here:
Oxford-Seymour.com. (n.d.). Oxford-Seymour Theory - Shakespeare’s Will: The Method in his Madness - by Michael and Spencer Stepniewski. Copyright 2020 Dragonwyck Web Design LLC. https://oxford-seymour.com/
II. Background Facts of Christopher Marlowe’s Death:
The circumstances of Christopher Marlowe’s death are suspicious. For background, Peter Farey’s Marlowe page is a great source of information about Marlowe and the circumstances of his death. See Peter Farey’s Marlowe page. (n.d.). https://marloweshakespeare.info/farey/index-2.html.
In a nutshell, in the aftermath of appearance of The Dutch Church Libel, the rooms that Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe shared were searched. A heretical tract was discovered. Kyd was arrested and alleged, under torture, that the tract belonged to Marlowe and that it had been inadvertently mixed up with his own papers. Kyd “described Marlowe as blasphemous, disorderly, holding treasonous opinions, being an irreligious reprobate and ‘intemperate & of a cruel hart.’" The Privy Council issued a warrant for Marlowe on 18 May 1593, requiring him to appear before the Privy Council. The Privy Council had information that that Marlowe was staying with Thomas Walsingham, who was a relative of “the late Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's principal secretary in the 1580s and a man more deeply involved in state espionage than any other member of the Privy Council.” Marlowe presented himself on 20 May 1593, but the Privy Council apparently was not in session, and he was directed to appear daily until they met in session. On Wednesday, 30 May 1593, Marlowe was killed. Wikipedia contributors. (2026b, February 26). Christopher Marlowe.2
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1 Dragon Wagon Radio. (2026, March 20). The Rape of Princess Elizabeth [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m-Ctmz-GXE
2 Wikipedia contributors. (2026d, February 26). Christopher Marlowe. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Marlowe
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According to the accepted account, on the day of his death, Marlowe was in the company of three “gentlemen,” Ingram Frizer, Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley. Marlowe spent the day in the house of Dame Eleanor Bull. When the bill or “the reckoning” was presented, Frizer and Marlowe argued over payment. Frizer was sitting at a table between Skeres and Poley, and Marlowe was lying behind him on a couch. Marlowe grabbed Frizer’s dagger and attacked and wounded him. In the scuffle, Frizer stabbed Marlowe above the right eye, killing him. William Danby, Coroner of the Queen’s Household, conducted an inquest in which the jury concluded that Frizer acted in self-defence, and he was pardoned within a month. Marlowe was buried in an unmarked grave immediately after the inquest, on 1 June 1593.3
The most suspicious part of Marlowe’s death is that at the time of his death he was in the company of two “gentlemen,” Ingram Frizer, Nicholas Skeres, who were alleged “confidence tricksters,” and a government spy, Robert Poley. Frizer “may have been working with the English secret service. He has been described as ‘a property speculator, a commodity broker, a fixer for gentlemen of good worship’ and a confidence trickster gulling ‘young fools’ out of their money.”4 Skeres was known to associate with loan sharks and may have also been a government agent.5 Poley “was an English double agent, government messenger and agent provocateur employed by members of the Privy Council during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I; he was described as ‘the very genius of the Elizabethan underworld’.”6
Another curious fact is that Marlowe was killed at the establishment of Dame Eleanor Bull--
Eleanor (or Elinor) Whitney was daughter of James Whitney and Sybil, née Parry, of Clifford, Herefordshire; she was, according to Charles Nicholl, "a woman of substance, well-born and well-connected" rather than the "shabby old ale-house keeper" of some depictions. Eleanor was a niece of Blanche Parry, a companion of Queen Elizabeth I. Blanche gave Eleanor a legacy of £100 in her will in 1589.7
Yet another curious fact is that because Marlowe had been killed within the “Verge” of the Queen’s court (“The Verge was a special 12-mile radius jurisdiction surrounding Queen Elizabeth I's court, where royal law superseded local law”), William Danby, the Coroner of the Queen’s Household conducted the inquest into Marlowe death (and apparently without the assistance of the local coroner, as was required).8
The coroner's inquest into the death of Christopher Marlowe (PRO Chancery C260 / 174 / 27) was discovered by Leslie Hotson, and a Modern English translation of the inquest was printed in his book The Death of Christopher Marlowe (pp.29-31). See --
The Death of Christopher Marlowe : J. Leslie Hotson : Free download, borrow, and streaming : Internet Archive. (1925). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.75347
The Coroner’s Inquisition. (n.d.) (original Latin) (at Peter Farey’s Marlowe page). https://marloweshakespeare.info/farey/inquis_1.html
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3 Id.
4 Wikipedia contributors. (2026a, January 4). Ingram Frizer. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingram_Frizer
5 Wikipedia contributors. (2025b, October 31). Nicholas Skeres. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Skeres
6 Wikipedia contributors. (2025c, October 31). Robert Poley. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Poley
7 Wikipedia contributors. (2026b, January 13). Eleanor Bull. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Bull
8 Was Marlowe’s inquest void? (n.d.). https://marloweshakespeare.info/farey/inquest.html
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If reader wishes to read it, the Modern English translation of the Coroner’s Inquisition into the death of Christopher Marlowe can be found here:
The Coroner’s Inquisition (Translation). (n.d.-b). https://marloweshakespeare.info/farey/inquis_2.html
III. Analysis of As You Like It:
1. The First Accepted Reference to Christopher Marlowe in As You Like It:
There are two sets of lines In As You Like It that are generally accepted as being references to Christopher Marlowe or the circumstances of his death. The first reference is in Act 3, Scene 5, where Phebe quotes a line from Marlowe’s poem Hero and Leander:
(Act 3, Scene 5)
Phe. Dead Shepheard, now I find thy saw of might,
Who euer lov'd, that lou'd not at first sight?
The second line (underlined)— “Who euer lov'd, that lou'd not at first sight?”— is Marlowe’s line from Hero and Leander. It means that true love is love at first sight and not the result of reasoned deliberation. The first line— “Dead Shepheard, now I find thy saw of might”— is text added in As You Like It. The "dead shepherd" reference is understood to be an acknowledgement of Marlowe.
Hero and Leander was first published in 1598:
Two editions of the poem were issued in quarto in 1598 (see 1598 in poetry); one, printed by Adam Islip for the bookseller Edward Blount, contained only Marlowe's original, while the other, printed by Felix Kingston for Paul Linley, included both the original and [George] Chapman's continuation.9
Since Marlowe died in 1593, Marlowe’s original version of the poem may have been modified beyond Chapman’s continuation. Therefore, the line “Who euer lov'd, that lou'd not at first sight?” in Hero and Leander may have been modified between 1593 and 1598 to hide a message about Marlowe’s death. I do not know if that is the case. In any case, it is clear the line had significant meaning after Marlowe’s death and for that reason was selected for inclusion in As You Like It.
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Wikipedia contributors. (2025, September 13). Hero and Leander (poem). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_and_Leander_(poem)
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I believe that these lines, especially the second line, contain information about why Marlowe was killed, and are an allusion to Marlowe’s knowledge of the fact that Edward de Vere was the son of Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, and Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth I). This message can be found hidden in the words of the lines, so let’s begin the analysis.
Phebe refers to a “dead shepherd.” The word “shepherd” can be translated into French as berger or pasteur (“shepherd; (Protestantism) pastor, reverend (title of a minister)”). (The meaning of pastor is probably intended as an allusion to the character Sir Oliver Mar-text, discussed later.) Berger is “[i]nherited from Old French bergier, from Late Latin vervēcārius [shepherd], from vervēx + -ārius.”10 The word vervex means “wether (castrated ram); (derogatory) blockhead, dolt.” [This is not a good start for Mr. Marlowe.]
Marlowe is probably referred to as a shepherd because one of his early works (c. 1580s) is a translation of Amores by Ovid, published as Ovid's Elegies.11 Known in English as Ovid, Publius Ovidius Naso (20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18) was a Roman poet who lived in the time of Augustus. The primary meaning of the name Ovid is "sheep," "sheep herder," or "wool," derived from the Latin word ovis. So, in case there was any doubt, the “dead shepherd” reference points to Marlowe.
Since the shepherd (Marlowe) is dead, we must translate the word “dead.” The word "dead" is mort in French and mortuus in Latin.
If the word “heard” (“to hear) (the second syllable of “shepheard”) is considered, it can be translated into [F.] ouïr. Since the letters “v” and “u” were interchangeable in Elizabethan printing, the spelling of the word can be imagined as ovïr for hidden message purposes. Wikipedia also has a helpful usage note: “This verb is archaic, but is still found in the literary turn of phrase ouïr dire [(literary) to hear that, to hear it said that].”12,13 A synonym of ouïr dire is entendre dire, and “entendre” has entered English by being “extracted from double entendre, corresponding to French entendre (‘to understand, to mean’).” In English “entendre” means “a meaning, especially one that is implied rather than explicitly stated.”14 Thus, the word “heard” (“to hear”) leads to [F.] ouïr dire, which is wordplay on the name de Vere, and the word “entendre,” which signals that there is hidden meaning in the words. The same sort of wordplay is possible with [L.] audire (“hear”). Thus, the “dead shepherd,” Christopher Marlowe, is again being linked to Edward de Vere in the hidden messages.
The words “Now I...” seem intended to have more than one meaning. In one sense, the words simply have their plain meaning for the purpose of the hidden meaning. In the sense of the hidden meaning of the words, “now” can be translated into Latin as iam. Similarly, the word “I” might be transformed into “I am” because in Aramaic (the language probably used by Jesus) the verb “to be” is sometimes implied, so the word “I” (Aramaic Ana) can be rendered as “I am.” Thus, “now I” might allude to ("I Am that I Am"), the divine name revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14. It should be noted that Edward de Vere and Shakespeare used the Biblical phrase “I am that I am” (Exodus 3.14). See de Vere’s defiant letter of October 30, 1584, to his father-in-law, Sir William Cecil (Lord Burghley) (Fowler 321, 332): '… I mean not to be your ward nor your child. I serve her majesty, and I am that I am ….'" De Vere Society. (2024, January 15). Edward de Vere as Shakespeare-2 - De Vere Society. De Vere Society - Promoting the Life of Edward De Vere.15
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10 berger - Wiktionary, the free dictionary. (n.d.). Wiktionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/berger
11 Works : Marlowe, Christopher, 1564-1593 : Free download, borrow, and streaming : Internet Archive. (1910b). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/cu31924013131796/page/552/mode/2up
12 ouïr - Wiktionary, the free dictionary. (n.d.). Wiktionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ou%C3%AFr
13 ouïr dire - Wiktionary, the free dictionary. (n.d.). Wiktionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ou%C3%AFr_dire#French
14 entendre - Wiktionary, the free dictionary. (n.d.). Wiktionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/entendre#French
15 De Vere Society. (2024b, January 15). Edward de Vere as Shakespeare-2 - De Vere Society. De Vere Society - Promoting the Life of Edward De Vere. https://deveresociety.co.uk/edward-de-vere-as-shakespeare-2/
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Consequently, the words “now I” might be and allusion to both de Vere and God. In addition, [L.] iam iam means “(as iam iam) doubly emphatic: now — now, this very moment, this instant, any time now, as of now, now indeed.” In this meaning, the words “very” (a pun on the name Vere) and “indeed” ([L.] vero, vere) are wordplay on the name de Vere. So, Phebe's line, "now I find thy saw of might," indicates that it is de Vere speaking through the character.
The word “find” can be translated into French as trouver (treuver (obsolete form)).16 Treuver means “(transitive) to find; to retrieve something lost, turn up something hidden, or encounter something previously unknown to one.” The Latin root of treuver is tropus “a figurative use of a word, a trope (postAug. for trānslātiō, verbōrum immūtātiō).”17 “Technically, in rhetoric, [a trope is] ‘a figure of speech which consists in the use of a word or phrase in a sense other than that which is proper to it’ [OED], ‘as when we call a stupid fellow an ass, or a shrewd man a fox.’”18 The French word retrouver means “to meet; to meet up; to bump into; to find each other.”19 Treuver is also a pun on the name de Vere. In Latin “true” translates to verum, and the letters “ver” are a clipping of the letters in the name Vere. Thus, the word “find” alludes to Edward de Vere and Christopher Marlowe finding each other, and it alludes to one, or the other, or both, turning up something hidden about the other. As I have discussed in other posts, Edward de Vere’s great secret was that he was the son of Thomas Seymour and Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth I). On the other hand, Edward de Vere may have learned something about Marlowe’s hidden character that was offensive or dangerous. These meanings are, of course, hidden in tropes.
Turning to the “saw of might” part of the line “now I find thy saw of might,” the standard interpretation of this line is that “saw” means having understood something. Some interpretations have proposed that “saw” alludes to “[a] saying or proverb.” However, an obsolete meaning of “saw” (spelled sawe or sagh) is “dictate; command; decree.” In addition, a Latin word for “might” is vires, which is nominative/accusative plural of vīs, meaning “power; influence; strength; faculty; potency,” or “violence; overwhelming force; coercion; assault; force of arms.” So, [L.] vires is wordplay on the name de Vere. In Old French, vis means “(anatomy) face; visage.”20 Marlowe was killed by a stab fatal stab wound to his face, above his right eye, possibly inflicted by Edward de Vere or his agent. The phrase "saw of might" implies that Marlowe "saw" or experienced the very real consequences of a decree of power that resulted in his death by a dagger blow above his right eye.
“Might” can also mean “possible, possibly.” “Possibly” can be translated into Latin as fortassis. Regarding the first part— fort— of this word, the late Alexander Waugh proposed that the numbers 17, 40, and 1740, are associated with Edward de Vere. The number 17 was his earl number and 40 was essentially his code number. See Alexander Waugh. (2022, January 28). The incalculable genius of John Dee [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-PWR7-0Hp4. When the word fortassis is divided into parts and slightly transformed, it becomes “four-T-ass-is" or “forty-ass-is," and the line “Dead Shepheard, now I find thy saw of might” can be given the following hidden meaning:
[Dead Shepherd (i.e. Marlowe), now I (Edward de Vere) find you thought “forty” (i.e. de Vere) is an ass (a fool).]
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16 trouver - Wiktionary, the free dictionary. (n.d.). Wiktionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trouver#French
17 tropus - Wiktionary, the free dictionary. (n.d.). Wiktionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tropus#Latin
18 Search “trope” on etymonline. (n.d.). Etymonline. https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=trope
19 retrouver - Wiktionary, the free dictionary. (n.d.). Wiktionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/retrouver
20 vis - Wiktionary, the free dictionary. (n.d.). Wiktionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vis#Latin
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The word “might” may also allude to the biblical story of “the widow’s mite (Mark 12:41–44, Luke 21:1–4). If so, it might allude to something like Marlowe being focused on money, or of his making only a small contribution to the Shakespeare project, but ultimately at the supreme sacrifice of his life.
Bringing these various allusions together, “saw of might” could mean that Marlowe took Edward de Vere to be a fool and betrayed him. As a result, Marlowe “saw of might,” that is, he "saw" the effect of a command or decree (probably from the Crown), and experienced a violent act or force of arms (a fatal stab wound to the right eye) from Edward de Vere. (The word “saw” also means “to cut (something) with a saw.”) The implication is that Edward de Vere may have murdered Marlowe, or ordered his murder, perhaps with secret government approval, which resulted in Marlowe’s death by fatal dagger thrust (cut) to his right eye, or above it. So, what might be a motive for Edward de Vere to murder Marlowe?
Examining the first line, “Dead Shepheard, now I find thy saw of might,” and focusing on the words “Dead” ([F.] mort) and “saw” (past tense of “see”) it is possible to find the hidden message “T. See-mor" (i.e. T[homas] Seymour). This suggests that Marlowe “saw of might” (i.e. he was killed) because he knew the dirty secrets of the powerful, specifically, Queen Elizabeth I's past affair with Thomas Seymour. This is a clue that may help to provide one motive for killing Marlowe— he could not be trusted to keep the secret of Edward de Vere’s parentage. Perhaps he was threatening to publicize it.
The second line, “Who euer lov'd, that lou'd not at first sight,” is more wordplay on names. “Ever” is obviously a pun on the name de Vere. Translating the words— “Love” is [F.] amour, “at” is [F.] de or [F.] vers, “first” is [L.] princeps (a doublet of “prince”), and “sight” (i.e. “to see”) is [L.] tuor. Therefore, there are all the elements needed to reveal the following: “a see-mour" (a Seymour), “de vers” (de Vere); princeps (prince), and “tu-de-or" (anagram of tuor and de). The message is—
[Who ever (i.e. Edward de Vere) loved (i.e., Christopher Marlowe), loved not (i.e. betrayed the secret of the existence of) a Tudor-Seymour prince (E. de Vere).]
Since this is found in a line from a poem that is accepted as Marlowe work-- Hero and Leander-- it indicates that Marlowe had knowledge of Edward de Vere’s scandalous true parentage, which supports the motive, described above, to have him killed.
The plain meaning of the line from Marlowe’s Hero and Leander is about love at first sight; however, I have no idea what, if anything, was going on intimately between Edward de Vere and Christopher Marlowe. Since Rosalind is disguised as Ganymede, it seems a reasonable assumption that the relationship might have been homosexual. That would imply that Edward de Vere was bisexual. However, whatever the relationship was does not really matter. The hidden messages indicate that the motive for Marlowe’s murder was primarily political and a matter of protecting state secrets.
[END OF PART 1]
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