Ingram Frizer

Ingram Frizer is believed to have been born in Kingsclere, Hampshire, in September, 1561. (1) Little is known of his early life. On 9th October, 1589, he purchased the Angel Inn in Basingstoke for £120. This was later sold to James Deane. Frizer seems to have been a fairly well-to-do business man profiting from buying and selling property. (2)

In 1593 Frizer became involved in a property deal that involved two of his friends, Thomas Walsingham and Nicholas Skeres. Walsingham was related to Sir Francis Walsingham, the former head of the English secret service. Skeres also had links with spying and helped to uncover the Babington Plot. The three men lent money to Drew Woodleff. It was later claimed that they were working to defraud Woodleff of his inheritance. (3)

Ingram Frizer - Secret Agent?

During this period the government became worried about a group of men who were suspected of being atheists. According to Paul Hyland, this group consisted of "a collection of thinkers, tightly knit or loosely grouped, whose passion was to explore the world and the mind". The group included the geographers, Richard Hakluyt and Robert Hues, the astrologer, Thomas Harriot, the mathematicians, Thomas Allen and Walter Warner, and the writers, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, George Chapman and Matthew Roydon. The men would either meet at the homes of Walter Raleigh, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, and Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland. (4)

Mathew Lyons, the author of The Favourite: Raleigh and His Queen (2011) has suggested: "Raleigh was not an atheist as we understand the term: his was a muscular unadorned faith, intense in its privacy and unbreachable in its force... His kind of atheism was, in fact, viewed with perhaps even more distrust and disgust by the Protestant establishment than recusantcy, and their horror of such indifference was shared across the religious divide." (5)

It is believed that the authorities decided to deal with the people they considered to be be members of this group. Richard Baines, a government spy, provided information to the Privy Council about Christopher Marlowe. (6) On 20th May 1593 Marlowe was arrested and charged with blasphemy and treason. His friend, Thomas Kyd, was also taken into custody and after being tortured he made a confession where he claimed that "it was his (Marlowe) custom… to jest at the divine scriptures and strive in argument to frustrate and confute what hath been spoken or written by prophets and such holy men". He also suggested that Marlowe had talked about Jesus Christ and St. John as bedfellows. (7)

Death of Christopher Marlowe

Marlowe was allowed bail, on condition that he report daily to the Star Chamber. On the 30th May, 1593, Marlowe was drinking in a tavern in Deptford with Ingram Frizer, Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley. The four men walked in the garden before having a meal together. Frizer had originally said he would pay for the food but later changed his mind. During the argument that followed Frizer stabbed Marlowe above the eyeball. The blade entered Marlowe's brain, killing him instantly. (8)

An Inquest was held on 1st June. William Danby, Coroner for the Queen's Household, presided over the Inquest. In doing so, he acted illegally, since the country coroner was required to be on hand, according to statutory law. (9) According to the report by Danby, "Marlowe suddenly and of malice... unsheathed the dagger... and there maliciously gave the aforesaid Ingram Fritzer two wounds on his head of the length of two inches and of the depth of a quarter of an inch." Danby claimed that Frizer, "in fear of being slain and sitting on the aforesaid bench between Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley so that he was not able to withdraw in any way, in his own defence and to save his life... gave the aforesaid Christopher Marlowe then and there a mortal wound above his right eye of the depth of two inches." (10)

David Riggs has questioned this account: "Since the scalp consists of skin and bone, Frizer's wounds can hardly have been a quarter of an inch deep, nor does Coroner Danby say that Marlowe attacked his companion with the point of his knife. The deposition rather indicates that Marlowe (or someone) pummelled Fritzer's scalp with the hilt of his dagger. This was a common practice in Elizabethan brawls and it had a precise connotation. Pummelling meant that you intended to hurt, but not to kill your adversary. Had Marlowe wanted to kill Fritzer, he would have stabbed him in the back of the neck. Fritzer's scalp wounds were the result of a beating rather than a stabbing." (11)

It was later claimed that Frizer, Skeres and Poley were all government agents. (12) Poley had worked for Sir Francis Walsingham and was a key figure in uncovering the Babington Plot. (13) As well as being spies, Frizer and Skeres, were both involved in money-lending swindles. (14) "Poley, Skerres and Frizer were used to operating in teams and had worked with one another before. They had practical experience in manipulating the law; they knew how to fabricate a trial narrative and maintain it under interrogation." (15)

On 1st July 1593 Frizer was found not guilty of murder for reasons of self defence. (16) Queen Elizabeth pardoned Frizer just two weeks later, a remarkably brief interview for a capital offence. In normal circumstances, people responsible for the death of another individual, would be kept in prison for a much longer period. (17)

Final Years

King James VI came to the throne in March 1603 and Sir Robert Cecil took charge of court politics. Living in Eltham, this marked a dramatic change in his fortunes. (18) According to David Riggs, the author of The World of Christopher Marlowe (2004): "Frizer received many lucrative windfalls. These rewards came to him by the way of Thomas Walsingham's wife Audrey, a favourite of Cecil's and of the new queen, Anne of Denmark. King James gave many leases of crown lands to Lady Walsingham, who farmed them out to Ingram Frizer. In at least one instance, Frizer received a lease worth £40 a year 'for his own use'. At his estate in Eltham, Kent, Frizer settled into the routines of village life." (18)

Ingram Frizer died August 1627.

Primary Sources

(1) William Danby, Inquest into the death of Christopher Marlowe (1st June, 1593)

Christopher Marlowe suddenly and of malice... unsheathed the dagger... and there maliciously gave the aforesaid Ingram Fritzer two wounds on his head of the length of two inches and of the depth of a quarter of an inch... In fear of being slain and sitting on the aforesaid bench between Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley so that he was not able to withdraw in any way, in his own defence and to save his life... gave the aforesaid Christopher Marlowe then and there a mortal wound above his right eye of the depth of two inches.

(4) David Riggs, The World of Christopher Marlowe (2004)

Since the scalp consists of skin and bone, Frizer's wounds can hardly have been a quarter of an inch deep, nor does Coroner Danby say that Marlowe attacked his companion with the point of his knife. The deposition rather indicates that Marlowe (or someone) pummelled Fritzer's scalp with the hilt of his dagger. This was a common practice in Elizabethan brawls and it had a precise connotation. Pummelling meant that you intended to hurt, but not to kill your adversary. Had Marlowe wanted to kill Fritzer, he would have stabbed him in the back of the neck. Fritzer's scalp wounds were the result of a beating rather than a stabbing.