On 30 May 1593, Christopher Marlowe was killed at Deptford.

The inquest recorded a quarrel at the house of Eleanor Bull. Marlowe had spent the day there with Ingram Frizer, Robert Poley and Nicholas Skeres. The dispute was said to have been over payment. Frizer stabbed Marlowe above the eye, and Marlowe died from the wound.

That account gave a clear legal version of the death. The men present still make it difficult to treat the event as an ordinary quarrel. Poley and Skeres had links with government service and intelligence work, and Frizer also moved in circles close to powerful patrons. That does not prove a plot. It does explain why Marlowe’s death has continued to attract questions.

Marlowe was already one of the strongest writers of the Elizabethan stage. *Tamburlaine*, *Doctor Faustus*, *The Jew of Malta* and *Edward II* had helped change English drama in the years when Shakespeare’s career was still developing. Marlowe was only in his twenties when he died.

The inquest said one thing: a quarrel, a stabbing and a death. The company around Marlowe points to a world of theatre, patronage, suspicion and government service. Deptford ended a short career that had already left a clear mark on English drama.