Richard Baines

Robert Baines was born in about 1554. (1) Very little is known of his early life but it is believed that he attended Cambridge University with Christopher Marlowe. Baines received his MA in 1576. (2)

In 1579 Baines attended the English College at Rheims in France. It was a seminary at which Catholics could study for the priesthood. He was ordained as a deacon on 8th May 1581. On 4th October 1581 he celebrated his first Mass as a priest. However, it later emerged he was working as a government spy for Francis Walsingham. (3)

In May 1582 he was arrested and imprisoned where he wrote a lengthy confession of his offences. (4) Baines claimed he intended to kill everyone in the college by "injecting poison" into a well. He then changed his mind and tried instead to sow dissent among new recruits. Park Honan, the author of Christopher Marlowe - Poet and Spy (2005), believes that Baines was not a very good spy: "By turns shrewd and asinine, Baines gulled the gullible and pocketed bribes, but failed in more sensitive duties." (5)

Charles Nicholl believes that Baines was installed as the rector of Waltham, near Cleethorpes in 1587. "He is described as a Cambridge man, and this is almost certainly our Baines. The wavering Catholic, the anti-Catholic spy, the Protestant minister: it is a plausible progression... According to recently discovered documents, Baines procured this benefice through the financial assistance and patronage of a certain William Ballard of Southwell, Nottingham." (6)

In 1591 Baines was living with Christopher Marlowe in the little sea-port of Vlissingen. The following year Marlowe was arrested with Gifford Gilbert, a goldsmith, and both men were accused by Baines of being counterfeiters. Under examination, Marlowe admits that he was with Gilbert when he made a Dutch shilling. However, he claimed that he was only testing out the goldsmith's skills. (7)

It has been argued that Baines had set-up Marlowe: "One day in Flushing, Gifford Gilbert minted a Dutch shilling in pewter, so false in colour that it was clearly designed as a token of his skills. Marlowe perhaps felt resigned to fate; but it appears that by taking Richard Baines at face value he lost sight of his own danger. Baines, by then, had professed warm friendship, goodwill, or an approval of coining; tactically, he may have posed as a man hoping to profit from counterfeiting himself, and so wished the two chamber-mates all success. Whatever he said makes little difference. He misled Marlowe, who grossly misjudged the spy's character and underestimated him." (8)

Richard Baines was believed and Christopher Marlowe, Evan Flud, and Gifford Gilbert, were deported on 26th January 1592. On his return Marlowe was interviewed by William Cecil, Lord Burghley. It is not known what happened at this meeting but he was certainly free by May, 1592. It has been suggested that the reason for this was that he had been working as a spy for Cecil in Europe. (9)

On 11th May 1593 the Privy Council instructed its officers to seek out the source of certain "libels", or inflammatory writings, directed against foreigners resident in London. Baines suggested that they searched the home of Thomas Kyd. The officers found, not what they were looking for, but material considered equally incriminating. It was claimed that they found material suggesting he was an atheist. Kyd was arrested and imprisoned. (10)

Kyd was tortured and he confessed that he was a member of an atheist group that included Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Harriot, Walter Warner and Matthew Roydon. However, he did not name the three men who were considered the leaders of the group, Walter Raleigh, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, and Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland. (11)

From his prison cell Kyd wrote to the lord keeper, Sir John Puckering, pleading his innocence. In one of his letters, he explained that the incriminating documents were not his but Marlowe's. In a second letter Kyd wrote more fully about "Marlowe's notoriously subversive views, accusing his fellow playwright of being blasphemous, disorderly, holding treasonous opinions, being an irreligious reprobate". (12) In his confession Kyd 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. (13)

On 20th May 1593 Christopher Marlowe was arrested and charged with blasphemy and treason. Richard Baines claimed that Marlowe was definitely an atheist. He claimed that he definitely heard Marlowe say that "Christ was a bastard and his mother dishonest". He also said that Marlowe once remarked that "if he were put to write a new religion, he would undertake both a more excellent and admirable method". Finally, he stated that Jesus Christ was a homosexual and "St John the Evangelist was bedfellow to Christ... and that he used him as the sinners of Sodoma". (14)

Roy Kendall, the author of Christopher Marlowe and Richard Baines: Journeys Through the Elizabethan Underground (2004) has discovered that the following year Baines was framed for a capital crime. In 1594 he was hanged at Tyburn. (15)

Primary Sources

(1) Park Honan, Christopher Marlowe - Poet and Spy (2005)

One day in Flushing, Gifford Gilbert minted a Dutch shilling in pewter, so false in colour that it was clearly designed as a token of his skills. Marlowe perhaps felt resigned to fate; but it appears that by taking Richard Baines at face value he lost sight of his own danger. Baines, by then, had professed warm friendship, goodwill, or an approval of coining; tactically, he may have posed as a man hoping to profit from counterfeiting himself, and so wished the two chamber-mates all success. Whatever he said makes little difference. He misled Marlowe, who grossly misjudged the spy's character and underestimated him. Baines was not inclined to string along with his roommates' plans: he knew counterfeiting was treasonous. Having delayed overnight after seeing the false coin, he went straight to the governor of Flushing, who arrested both Marlowe and Gilbert.